


Inconvenient Fireworks

by themerrygentleman



Series: Three's Company [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bossuet's Terrible Luck, Fluff and Smut, Getting Together, Multi, Polyamory, Relationship Negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 15:48:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7469583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themerrygentleman/pseuds/themerrygentleman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Bossuet buries his head in his hands. “And it all just…keeps <em>happening.</em> I honestly cannot turn a corner without bumping into both of them naked on top of each other. My life is starting to feel like an HBO show. Grantaire, please tell me I’m not living in an HBO show…!”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>  <em>“The cinematography isn’t good enough,” Grantaire observes drily, glancing around the Musain’s battered and dimly lit upper room. “And even if you were, there are probably worse networks to live in. Still: it sounds like you, my friend, have a problem here.”</em></p><p> </p><p>Five times Bossuet accidentally interrupted Joly and Musichetta in the middle of sexual activities, and one time he was invited.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inconvenient Fireworks

**PROLOGUE**

**September**

“Um, I’m meeting someone here,” Bossuet tells the hostess. “Joly, party of two, they’re probably at one of those booths in the back?”

“Of course! Right this way,” she tells him, and starts off for the back of the restaurant. Bossuet’s heart skips a beat or two as the hostess leads him through the maze of candlelit tables. He’s been looking forward to this dinner ever since Joly brought it up a few days back. The guy’s been rhapsodizing about his amazing new girlfriend for _weeks_ now, and as far as Bossuet is concerned, it’s about damn time he got a chance to meet her.

It’s only a matter of seconds before he spots Joly. His best friend is pretty hard to miss: as usual, he’s caught up in an animated conversation, illustrating his words with expansive gestures and frequently having to pause and hold back laughter. But this time, there’s another voice mixed in with Joly’s, someone with a rich, musical laugh who seems to be keeping pace with his excited ramblings. Bossuet breaks into a grin and hurries over to the booth.

“Hey, sorry I’m late!” he says as he approaches. “The bus I was on, uh, kinda broke down, so I had to...”

Joly’s face lights up as he sees Bossuet, and he waves away the explanation. “Don’t worry about it! Honestly, by this point I always just kind of assume something catastrophic like that is gonna happen to you, so I can plan around it. We already ordered, I hope you don’t mind—we’re gonna split one of the extra-large pizzas, I got all the toppings you like on half.”

The woman on the other side of the booth has been watching this conversation with a patient smile. Joly turns back to her, still beaming. “Anyway, where are my manners, yikes!” he says. “Gotta make some introductions. Musichetta, this is my roommate Bossuet. Bossuet, this is Musichetta, my new girlfriend.” He pumps a celebratory fist in the air. “I still love that I get to say that!”

Musichetta meets Bossuet’s eyes, her expression wry but fond. “He’s adorable,” she says, nodding in Joly’s direction.

“Isn’t he, though?” Bossuet agrees, sliding into the booth next to Joly and ruffling his already messy copper-colored hair.

While they’re waiting for their pizza to arrive, Joly and Musichetta regale Bossuet with the story of how the two of them met and started dating. Bossuet has already heard bits and pieces of this story from Joly, but he’s happy to get the full version. Joly’s a regular customer at the bookstore where Musichetta works, and apparently the two of them had gotten onto friendly terms and started texting each other in their off hours, sharing long, impassioned conversations about science fiction novels. It wasn’t long before the conversations started to turn flirtatious, and before Joly really knew what was happening, Musichetta had asked him out and he’d happily accepted.

Bossuet has to admit, it’s all pretty damn adorable. He chimes in with a few reactions at the appropriate moments, although he ends up addressing most of his remarks to the shakers of parmesan cheese and crushed red pepper flakes on the table rather than to the people sitting across from him. He’s finding himself a bit tongue-tied. Meeting new people can be awkward before the ice breaks. Well, that, plus he can’t deny that Musichetta is kind of…stunning. It’s just ever so slightly intimidating.

Joly and Musichetta together are rather a study in contrasts: she’s darker and slightly taller than he is, and curvy in a statuesque kind of way whereas he has the proportions of a twig. She’s dressed in a striking, fashionable red-and-black ensemble that makes her look like she belongs in a much fancier restaurant than Joly and Bossuet’s favorite old pizza place, while Joly is wearing one of his usual T-shirts. But sitting next to each other, Musichetta and Joly don’t clash, they come alive together. As their story comes to its conclusion, Musichetta’s gestures grow more and more animated, and Joly breaks out into a waterfall of laughter. Watching them together makes Bossuet’s heart twist in a way that he doesn’t have words for.

“So, Bossuet,” says Musichetta, and he starts, shaking himself back to reality. “I got the feeling that you and Joly have known each other for a while?”

“Who, this guy?” says Joly, glancing over at Bossuet in mock surprise. “Nah, he just kinda showed up. I have no idea who he is.” But he can’t keep a straight face for even half the sentence.

 “I am such a party crasher,” Bossuet finishes for him, grinning. “But no, yeah, seriously, I’ve known this nerd for ages. We met right at the start of our freshman year of college—in the waiting room at campus health services, long story—and we’ve been roommates ever since.”

“Roommates, best friends, partners in crime, bros for life,” Joly says once he’s recovered from his laughing fit. “Whatever you want to call it, we’re not picky. By now, most of our friends just refer to us as Joly-and-Bossuet, like we’re a single unit.”

“Like we’re a novelty pair of matching salt and pepper shakers,” Bossuet says, jumping at the chance to use his favorite simile.

One corner of Musichetta’s mouth turns up in half a smile. “You two are one hell of a double act,” she tells them. “I’m not going to be getting in the way or anything, am I?”

“Hell, no!” Bossuet says quickly, hoping there’s no genuine concern beneath the teasing. “The more the merrier. As far as I’m concerned, as long as you can put up with Joly’s terrible puns, you can stay.”

They’re distracted for a moment by their pizza arriving, sending delicious smells wafting across the table. Musichetta picks up a slice and raises an eyebrow at Bossuet, her face lighting up with a wicked, conspiratorial grin. “Oh, the puns shouldn’t be a problem,” she says. “I’ve always had a thing for _cheesy_ humor.”

If Bossuet falls a little bit in love right then and there, well—he doesn’t think anyone could blame him. He picks up a slice of his own, trailing strings of half-melted cheese and loaded with plenty of peppers and black olives, and takes a hefty bite of it while he tries to think of a retaliatory pun. And in that moment, everything is pure savory bliss.

By the time five more slices of the pizza have disappeared, it almost feels like the three of them have known each other forever. Musichetta is friendly, enthusiastic, and a wonderful storyteller, always ready with a thoughtful question or a great joke. It’s obvious that she and Joly like each other a lot—anyone could have put that together from the way they light up around each other. But on top of that, she really doesn’t seem to view meeting her boyfriend’s roommate as an obligation to be quickly gotten out of the way. Bossuet is an equal part of the dinner-table conversation, which rambles just about everywhere, from books to movies to favorite restaurants, from future plans to old friends. It’s far and away the most fun Bossuet has ever had meeting one of Joly’s dates.  

Later on, after Musichetta has caught a bus back to her apartment and Joly and Bossuet are walking home though the crisp autumn evening, Bossuet turns to Joly and nudges him in the side. “Um, if you don’t mind my saying so, god _damn_.”

Joly beams at him. “I _know!_ Didn’t I tell you?”

Bossuet just shakes his head. “Honestly, she is _amazing._ You, my friend, are one lucky guy.”

There’s a skip in Joly’s step, like gravity is barely managing to hold him down. “I knew you’d like her.”

“Yeah, well, I guess it stands to reason,” Bossuet says. “We’ve always been on the same page about people we like. How many times were we each other’s wingmen in college? And don’t forget that one party when we were both tripping over each other trying to ask out--”

“ _That microbrewing guy,_ ” both of them say simultaneously, and grin at each other.

Joly chuckles, his breath blossoming into the air in white clouds. “That was such a catastrophe. Ahhh, memories.”

“I’ve got a much better feeling about this one, though,” Bossuet says as they start up the steps to their apartment.

“Okay, see, I agree with you, but now you’re making me nervous,” Joly says, unlocking the door and waving Bossuet inside. “Mr. Bad Luck telling me about good feelings? _How_ many times now have you been on a bus that’s broken down?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bossuet grumbles. “But even still, something tells me that this is going to work out just fine.”

Looking back on this later, all Bossuet can think is that he really should have known better than to say something like that.

* * *

 

**PART ONE**

**December**

The first time it happens, Bossuet is in a hurry.

By this point in his life, he’s never surprised to discover that he’s forgotten something important on his way out the door. After all, there are only so many times you can get upset at yourself for being scatterbrained—eventually all you can do is shrug and accept your terrible luck as an inherent part of your nature. Stuff disappears when Bossuet is around—it’s just a law of the universe. So when he pats down his pockets to double-check their contents and doesn’t feel the reassuring weight of his cell phone in any of them, he doesn’t waste time beating himself up about it. Instead, he turns on his heel and starts power-walking back to the apartment, already mentally recalculating how long it’ll take him to get to work.

He’s a little hassled by this turn of events, and his focus has narrowed down to the singular goal of getting his phone back, so he’s paying less attention to his surroundings than usual. The lights are off in the living room of the apartment when he walks in, and for about two seconds, he thinks he’s the only one there. But the twin yelps of surprise coming from the direction of the couch shatter that notion immediately, and as his eyes adjust to the low light, he can see Joly and Musichetta entwined there.

He can see kind of a lot _more_ of Joly and Musichetta than he’s used to, as a matter of fact.

Both of them are shirtless, tangled together face-to-face in a position that suggests some seriously intense kissing has been happening. Joly’s hands are frozen where they’ve clearly just been fiddling with the clasp of Musichetta’s bra. As far as Bossuet can tell, if he’d walked in sixty seconds later, he could have arrived to something a _lot_ more compromising.

As the two lovers start to disentangle themselves, Bossuet’s brain numbly fills in the missing details. Joly doesn’t have any morning classes on Mondays, and Musichetta’s shift at the bookstore must not start until later. She’d stayed over the previous night, so that would have given them plenty of opportunity this morning for…well. For this.

“Oh, hey, Bossuet!” Musichetta gives him what’s clearly supposed to be a nonchalant wave, although the fact that she has to extricate her hand from the depths of Joly’s pants in order to give it kind of ruins the effect.

Bossuet sighs and drags himself away from _that_ train of thought, grateful that at least the lights are still off and the other two probably can’t see his face turning red. “Hey, guys. Glad _some_ of us are having a good time, anyway.”

Joly looks away and coughs, and Bossuet knows from long experience that his roommate must be really embarrassed if he’s trying to avoid eye contact so blatantly. “Sorry for barging in on you like that,” Bossuet says, taking his best stab at sounding breezy and nonchalant. “Although, that being said, some kind of advance warning next time might be nice.”

 _“_ You _were_ supposed to be gone, for the record!” says Joly, who might as well be talking to the kitchen cabinets for all that he’s still avoiding eye contact. Musichetta pauses in the middle of pulling her shirt back on to shrug at Bossuet in a he-has-a-point kind of gesture.

Bossuet shrugs. “What can I say, life is full of surprises. But seriously, don’t worry, guys, it’s cool. Don’t let me get in your way. I’m just here because I forgot my phone.” He mercifully spots it on the counter and heads over to grab it, willing himself to keep his eyes locked onto it and not notice anything that might be going on in his peripheral vision. (The avoiding-eye-contact thing is only one of many habits that he has in common with Joly—call it convergent evolution.) “You guys, uh, knock yourselves out,” he mutters, pivoting around and making a beeline for the door. “I’m gone for real this time.”

He steps outside without once looking back and slams the door, feeling his overheated face stinging against the sudden cold. He pauses on the doorstep for a moment, trying not to imagine what was just happening on the other side, then shakes himself and keeps walking. _They’re probably going to get right back to what they were doing before I interrupted,_ he realizes, and starts walking faster.

He’s so focused on trying to get far away from the apartment as quickly as possible, he actually somehow manages to get to work on time, against all the odds. Every cloud has a silver lining.

Bossuet almost manages to forget about the whole incident over the course of a long, boring day of copy-editing, but when he gets home, Joly and Musichetta call him over to the kitchen table for what he can immediately tell is going to be a serious conversation. Before he’s even said anything, Joly’s ears are so bright pink they’re practically glowing, and Musichetta--although she’s less visibly affected--still looks a little ill at ease, too.

Bossuet’s heart sinks. He knows that all three of them are going to try valiantly not to make this awkward, and he also knows that despite their best efforts, it’s not going to work.

Musichetta is the first one to speak up. “So, uh, Bossuet. We were going to bring this up anyway, but recent events kind of…forced the issue. How do I…I mean, okay, look. I know I’ve been spending a lot of time over here lately.”

“Yeah, I did notice that.” Bossuet can’t stop himself from cracking a smile—ever since Joly and Musichetta got together, their lives have looked like the happy ending of a Hallmark channel rom-com. It’s adorable.

Musichetta twists her hands together, her expression uncertain. “And I hope I’m not annoying you or wearing out my welcome or anything. I gave you some idea of the whole…situation…with my place, and honestly it’s _so_ much nicer being here, but if you need me to give you some space, I’ll respect that.”

Bossuet nods, understanding. During that first meeting at the pizza place, Musichetta had told a number of funny stories about the roommates she shares an apartment with. The stories mostly involved their drunken misadventures and total lack of cleaning skills, but one or two of them had ended with run-ins with the law. When Bossuet backs up and looks at the whole picture, it’s not quite as funny.

It’s kind of infuriating, actually--someone as amazing as Musichetta deserves so much better than that—so Bossuet rushes to reassure her, all smiles. “No, really, it’s not a problem, I promise. It’s great having you here. My only complaint is the way you keep beating Joly and me at Mario Kart.”

She smirks, the troubled furrow to her brow disappearing. “Learn the shortcuts better and you won’t have that problem. But hey, thanks for that.”

There’s a moment of quiet satisfaction shared between all three of them, until Bossuet remembers the reason this conversation started in the first place.

“But you know,” says Musichetta like she’s been reading his mind, “there is that _one_ other thing that we should address.”

Bossuet knows when he’s cornered. All he can do is nod. “Yeah.”

Joly clears his throat, his whole face turning sunset red. “The point is, with what happened earlier…it was probably only a matter of time before you stumbled across, um, things happening. There’s only so much room in this apartment, and we’ve been…I mean, I just…um, yeah.”

Bossuet—who’s already mentally mapped out how most of this conversation is probably going to go—nods. “Yeah, I’d kinda pieced that together. But I said that I don’t mind having Musichetta here, and I meant it. And hey, I don’t want to be a third wheel, you know? So I’ll do my best to just kind of stay out of the way.”

“We figured it would be best to be upfront about this,” Musichetta says. “For all of our sakes. So many problems happen because people treat sex like some huge taboo subject that no one can ever talk about directly, when it would be so much easier and healthier to cut through all that bullshit and just be honest about it.”

Since Bossuet knows that Musichetta initially bonded with Joly over a discussion of gender roles in _The Left Hand of Darkness_ , this view is hardly surprising. And hey, he’d be hard-pressed to argue with it, anyway. “That’s fair,” he says aloud.

Musichetta leans forward and meets Bossuet’s eyes. “I’m a pretty sexual person, Bossuet. And my relationship with Joly is still pretty new, and he’s enthusiastic about it too, and we’re going to want to…well, explore things. Together. And I’m not going to be ashamed of that, but at the same time, I don’t want to make things uncomfortable for you, either.”

“And I appreciate that,” Bossuet says weakly. As much as he’s trying not to let it, the echo of Musichetta’s voice saying “I’m a pretty sexual person” is already rattling around in his brain, together with a memory of what she looks like shirtless with her hair all disheveled. And then there’s Joly. Bossuet wonders exactly what kind of things he wants to explore. After all, Joly’s always been one for creative ideas, and from what Bossuet remembers, none of his exes back in college ever had any complaints…

 _Stop thinking about it stop thinking about it stop thinking about it,_ Bossuet silently yells at himself until it drowns the memory out. He gives his head a violent shake and tunes back into the conversation.

 “Ideally we’d try not to be…well, around here, all the time. But unfortunately, hanging out at Musichetta’s apartment is not really the greatest option right now,” says Joly, wincing.

Musichetta raises a sardonic eyebrow and ticks off the place’s qualifications on her fingers. “Thin walls, piles of everyone else’s damn dirty laundry all over the place, drunk yelling arguments at random hours of the night…not really what you’d call a romantic atmosphere. So I’m afraid our options are kind of limited.”

“We’ll do our best to warn you when things are happening, though,” Joly says hurriedly. “That should work out for the best for everyone concerned. It might take a while to work out a whole system, but we can always, like, put a sock on the door or something in the meantime.”

Bossuet nods again, contemplative. “Yeah, I guess that’s fair.” Then a lightbulb goes off somewhere backstage in his head. Of course: the perfect way to defuse the awkwardness. His contemplative look turns into something more like a sly grin. “So what you’re saying is that you’ll warn me if anything is… _afoot_? I promise I’ll be the sole of discretion.”

Joly’s face, predictably, lights up. “Oh, put a sock in it,” he tells Bossuet.

Bossuet snaps his fingers and huffs in mock frustration. “Darn.”

Musichetta elbows Joly, clearly trying not to laugh and only partially succeeding. “Come on, quit needling him. I’m pretty sure he’s already cottoned on to what we’re saying.”

“Now you’re just knit-picking,” Joly shoots back immediately. There’s a momentary pause, and then all three of them dissolve into unrestrained giggling. Bossuet has a suspicion that it has as much to do with the release of nervous tension as it does with the puns, but he’s hardly about to complain.

“I may have lost this pun battle,” he declares when he can breathe normally again, “but the pun war is not over!”

“Well, I think we’re just about out of sock-related puns,” Joly says, and Musichetta immediately chimes in with, “We’ll have to see about _stocking_ some more.”

Bossuet loves them both. He really does.

The sex thing doesn’t bother him, he reminds himself after they’ve dispersed, really it doesn’t. Joly and Musichetta are adults, making decisions of their own free will, and who the hell is he to have a problem with that? He’s not about to begrudge them the… _exuberance_ of a new relationship. And anyway, ever since high school, “roll with the punches” has been Bossuet’s motto. He makes a point of never getting bent out of shape by minor inconveniences, and he’s not about to start now. Sure, there might be a few more weird situations like today’s, but that’s nothing he can’t handle.

Right? Right.

* * *

 

**PART TWO**

**January**

The second time it happens, Bossuet realizes there’s no going back.

That last incident should have been the end of it. It really, really should have.

Bossuet tells himself this, silently, over and over, face buried in his hands. But no matter how many times he repeats the mantra, reality remains something else altogether. “Should” will only get you so far.

He can still hear Joly and Musichetta in the next room over, a two-part harmony of excited conversation and frequent laughter. And every new laugh he hears ignites a spark of guilty excitement somewhere within him. He’d been reading before this, but it hadn’t taken him long to realize he was just going over the same sentence again and again, absorbing none of the meaning, and he’d quickly given up. There’s no way around it—Joly and Musichetta have gotten into his head, and he can’t make them leave.

Right now, the two of them are getting ready to head out to the local gym. Their mutual friend Bahorel, who works there, has had a standing offer for a while now to set them up with personalized workout regimens. Now, with the dreariest weeks of January stretching out before them and New Year’s fitness resolutions in danger of being broken, Joly and Musichetta have finally taken him up on it. Bossuet could have taken Bahorel up on the same offer, but he’d held off—best to just let it be a couple’s thing, he’d decided. It had been a lonely kind of thought at the time, but now he’s glad for it—he desperately needs an hour or two of solitude and silence to process everything going through his head right now.

A fresh giggling fit erupts from the next room, and Bossuet grimaces and grinds the heel of his palm into his temple. This is so _stupid._ He’s never like this. It’s not like he hasn’t had many weirder experiences than a little bit of roommate PDA (change majors four times in college, and you end up meeting a lot of colorful people). He prides himself on being a laid-back kind of guy who never has a problem with anything. So he should absolutely be able to skate over a little awkwardness and move on with his life, right?

Right. Except for the part where he can’t stop thinking about it.

They system they’d all agreed to operates on the assumption that Bossuet wants to witness as little PDA between Joly and Musichetta as possible. And that makes sense, of course it does, but some parts of his brain haven’t exactly gotten with that program. He can’t seem to stop himself from mentally replaying the memories he has of Joly and Musichetta giggling and flirting and kissing, with a much closer scrutiny than he should probably be using. And he’s starting to have an uncomfortable suspicion as to why.

* * *

The other day, Bossuet and Joly had found themselves in the same laundry room, both waiting for a cycle to end. As always, they’d gotten to chatting, and after a few minutes Joly had paused and taken a deep breath, like he was steeling himself to say something important.

“Bossuet,” he’d finally started, fiddling nervously with a loose thread on his shirt, “I, uh, I just wanted to thank you for how welcoming you’ve been with ‘Chetta. I know she’s been over a lot”—

“Dude, she’s great. It’s no problem,” Bossuet had said, breathing out a sigh of relief—he’d expected something much worse from how nervous Joly had looked. The occasional interrupted makeout session notwithstanding, life was absolutely better with Musichetta around the apartment. She was an endless source of great reading recommendations, she’d picked up on all of Joly and Bossuet’s longstanding in-jokes in about a week and gleefully set about adding to them, and as far as Bossuet was concerned, her peanut-butter-chocolate-chip cookie recipe was the best in the known universe.

Joly, still not looking entirely reassured, continued on. “It’s just, you know, her apartment fucking _sucks_ , it’s got to be a health nightmare, old alcohol containers and pizza boxes everywhere…”

“Yeah, she mentioned,” Bossuet had said, waving away Joly’s concern. “And I know you want to spend time with her. Seriously, it’s cool, don’t worry about me.”

In response to that, Joly had just kept twisting his hands anxiously together. “I know you two have been getting along great, which is awesome, but I don’t want to be that obnoxious new-relationship person, and I don’t want to neglect our friendship or anything just because I’m with her”—

Nothing melts Bossuet’s heart like these occasional glimpses into just how much Joly cares about everything and everyone in his life. Bossuet had insisted on a hug after that, and in the middle of it, he could feel all the tension leaving Joly’s body in one great, relieved slump.

“We’ll work it out,” Bossuet had promised. “Hey, movie night this weekend?”

“Movie night this weekend,” Joly had agreed. “Your choice this time. And seriously, tell me if anything is not okay, and I’ll do what I can to fix it.”

“Things are good. Things are great, I promise,” Bossuet had said, and meant it.

“Yeah, they really are, aren’t they.” And with that, Joly had gone back to scrolling through something on his phone, a quiet smile on his face.

Bossuet, with nothing much else to do, had found himself giving his roommate a long, considering look. Joly had put his earbuds back in, and he was nodding slightly along to the music as he read, even humming a few notes here and there—without even realizing he was doing so, Bossuet suspected. His hair was the same fluffy, tangled mess as always, his light blue shirt hanging in soft folds from his slim frame, and….and Bossuet had suddenly found himself standing at a crossroads.

Bossuet had always known that Joly was smart, and funny, and talented, and the two of them had cared about each other for years. But these past few weeks, Bossuet had been starting to see him in a light he’d never really considered before, understanding more and more what Musichetta saw in the guy. _Why haven’t I ever…_ he’d wondered. _What if I just took two steps closer right now and…_

… _and ruined everything_ , he’d finished the sentence glumly. And stayed right where he was. A minute later, his laundry had finally tumbled to a halt, the door unlocking with a very final _click._

Every once in a great while, the universe gives him a break, and right then it had given him an escape route. Bossuet had gathered up his laundry and left without looking back. If he has one key strength, it’s a willingness to take what he can get.

* * *

 

Bossuet can’t deny the truth anymore. He’s been avoiding it for a while now, mentally steering away whenever it drifts across his thoughts, but sooner or later he’s going to have to face it. This goes beyond acknowledging that Musichetta is gorgeous, or finally admitting to himself that he thinks Joly is really fucking cute, as well. Maybe that’s where it started, but it’s turning into something else.

It would have been so much easier if surface-level attraction was _all_ it was. That much would make sense—stumbling across two very attractive people in a sexual situation is bound to give him some ideas, and make his heart beat faster around both of them for a while. And it would be easy enough to deal with. There’s no point in breaking up two of the most important friendships in his life for the sake of a few awkward boners. He could just spend a little more time away from the apartment if he needed to, and, well…he’s got two hands and a very active imagination, and that’s all he’d need to take the edge off of things when necessary.

But what the fuck is he supposed to do if sometimes he catches himself daydreaming about just kissing Joly or Musichetta, softly and slowly with no particular need for it to lead to anything? Or sharing a bed with them? Or holding hands with them under the stars, or taking both of them out to a fancy restaurant, or cheering for them and helping them achieve all their dreams or…

When he buries his head in his hands, he can feel his face burning. He can already tell that these feelings are not going to go away anytime soon. They’re mild enough for now, like the faintest hints of malaise before coming down with a cold, but they’ll only get stronger as time goes on.

So yeah, it makes a kind of sense that when he accidentally runs across a sight like Musichetta nudging Joly up against a wall and kissing the hell out of him (like he did earlier this afternoon), he has to hold back the thought that he kind of wants a turn. In _either_ position. He’s not picky.

He’s tried to tell himself that he can’t help having these feelings, but still, having a thing for your best friend’s girlfriend feels about as disloyal as it gets. Is it more or less of a betrayal if you’re also starting to have a thing for your best friend at the same time?

 _Not a big deal_ , he tells himself, not for the first time that day. _It’s not a big deal._ _Deep breaths._ He can keep a handle on the whole situation, just like before. He’s had plenty of practice.

“Hey, Bossuet, we’re just about ready to head out. You’re sure you don’t want to tag along?”

The voice surprises Bossuet, who’s still lost in his own thoughts, and he jerks back upright, hoping he doesn’t look too obviously caught off guard. What he sees next does not help with that.

Joly is standing in the doorway, wearing a tank top and short shorts and of course his hair’s already messed up—or, no, the word for it these days is more like _tousled,_ and he’s looking at Bossuet with that trademark sincere, irrepressible grin of his, like the whole world is an adventure just waiting for him to discover. Bossuet is not thinking about it, Bossuet is _not_ thinking about it—

Musichetta shows up next, wearing yoga pants and a sky-blue sports bra, casually slinging an arm around Joly’s shoulders. Her grin matches his.

Bossuet is thinking about it.

“Um…no,” he stammers. “I mean, sorry, yes, I’m sure. Maybe next time—let me know how it goes, okay?”

No matter how much he tries to tear his thoughts away from what the two of them are wearing, it’s no use: his mind just snaps right back to it like it’s being drawn by a magnet. “Nice workout gear, by the way,” he hears himself saying.

“That’s thanks to Bahorel too,” Joly says. “He pointed us to this shop he knows that sells athletic wear and stuff—I think Feuilly used to work there, actually. I didn’t expect that to be my kind of thing, but we figured if we’re gonna do this New Year’s resolution we might as well go all in, and it was actually kinda fun.”

Bossuet isn’t sure if he should be thanking Bahorel or cursing him. Maybe a generous mix of both, to cover all his bases.

“You really can come with us if you want,” Musichetta says. “You’d be welcome, you know; we don’t want to make you feel like a third wheel or anything.”

It’s practically the same speech Joly gave him the other day—Bossuet wonders if they’ve been coordinating. _Just looking at you two right now is already giving my heart a full cardio workout,_ he thinks but (thankfully) doesn’t say. “No, thanks, I get it,” he says out loud. “I think I’m going to go for a run, actually—I could use some fresh air.”

That much, at least, is the truth. For a while, it even works—the pounding rhythm of his shoes on the pavement, and the sheer exertion he needs to keep up the pace, fill his head with a pleasant, industrious kind of blankness, driving any and all treacherously intimate thoughts about Musichetta and Joly clear out of his head. But eventually he has to stop running, and then his imagination inevitably wanders to all of the stretching and sweating they must be doing right now, and in those _outfits…_

He already feels giddy and breathless from the run, and that just makes it ten times worse.

He’s wrung out and breathing hard by the time he gets back to the apartment—he never keeps up with working out in the winter as much as he should, and his stamina could use some work—so he’s really not prepared for the sight that greets him on the other side of the door.

Bossuet looks away as fast as he can once he realizes what’s going on, so he only gets a few split-second glimpses, but that’s more than enough time to register some very important facts:

  * Joly and Musichetta are making out heavily up against a wall, their hands all over each other, and
  * Joly’s tank top is gone, and now Musichetta’s _only_ wearing the yoga pants.



It’s really not fair, Bossuet thinks numbly. He’s still out of breath from the run; he can’t protest or even express shock properly. He wheezes something like “Oh, come on,” but he’s not sure even that much is understandable.

Joly starts, banging his head up against the wall, and stumbles away from Musichetta. “Oh, Bossuet! Hey!” he says, his voice pitched higher than normal. “Sorry, we…did not notice you were back.”

“Got kind of caught up in the moment,” Musichetta agrees. “We were just going to shower, but we, uh, got kind of distracted along the way.”

Bossuet is _still_ trying to get his breath back, and being severely turned on by all this is not helping matters. He’s too light-headed by now to even try for a proper response to this situation. “You know what…” he mutters, staring at the floor. “I’m just going to go…hang out in my room for a while. You guys…do whatever. You, uh…get the first shower. Obviously.”

He makes for his bedroom as fast as he can go, but in his present state that’s not very fast at all, and he catches another glimpse of Musichetta on his way out. As far as he’s concerned, it’s a real shame that there’s no way to tell your platonic roommate that she looks really damn good topless without everything getting desperately weird. And then, well. Those yoga pants are also very flattering on her. But it goes beyond that. She’s almost as breathless as Bossuet is himself, her hair disheveled, her eyes bright, and Bossuet is overwhelmed with how _alive_ she looks, how vivid and joyous and just intensely _present_ in a way that brings you up short.

Joly, meanwhile, is rubbing the back of his head and messing his hair up into a completely hopeless tangle. Bossuet tries to keep himself from staring at the way the muscles of his upper body move, but keeping his eyes on Joly’s face does not really help matters. He’s still red in the face, and he has that same exhilarated look to him that Musichetta does. Bossuet is overwhelmed with a sudden, terrible desire to just stay right there with both of them and…

…he takes extra-long strides the rest of the way to his bedroom before he starts getting any more ideas.

Bossuet collapses onto his bed and just lies there, unmoving, for a long while. Before he’s really managed to get his thoughts in order, a sound drifts over to him through the faint hiss of shower water. A sound that’s definitely a very aroused moan. Bossuet burrows deeper into the mattress, trying to will his heart to stop thumping so loudly. At this distance, he’s not even sure whose voice it _was,_ but somehow it barely seems to matter. At this point, either option is equally…intriguing.

Trying to tell himself not to picture Joly and Musichetta naked and entwined in the shower is _really_ not working out well. Bossuet can barely even admit this to himself, but he’d like to hear either of them make an aroused noise like that again. But he might like it even more if he was the one causing it…

He’s deeply, profoundly unsure if he should be cursing the universe for this, or thanking it. He settles, again, for a generous mix of both.

* * *

 

**PART THREE**

**February**

 

The third time it happens, Bossuet has other things on his mind.

It's a Friday evening just before Valentine's Day. He's walking back to the apartment, especially eager to get home as soon as he can, for the weather is the worst of late winter. An oppressive fog hangs in the air, giving the streetlamps ghostly orange halos and saturating Bossuet's scarf with water droplets. Gritty piles of half-melted snow obstruct the sidewalks, and Bossuet isn't doing the best job of avoiding them. His coordination--which is haphazard at the best of times--has been further eroded by the effects of a drink or two.

Well, okay, maybe a little more than two.

He's been spending a lot more time away from the apartment lately. Being around Joly and Musichetta can still feel like a puzzle he hasn't quite solved yet, and trying to untangle it just makes his heart feel overwhelmed and weighed down. They’re still wonderful, of course, and he cares about both of them a lot, but sometimes he just—can’t handle it. The way he sees it, he might as well just avoid the whole mess when he can, until his heart decides to settle the fuck down already. Sometimes that means taking long walks, sometimes it means finding a quiet corner in the local library, and sometimes it means spending more time with his other friends. 

His other friends can be pretty enthusiastic social drinkers, especially on bar trivia nights. Tonight, things definitely went a little off the rails, especially after Bahorel started that last drinking game. And, well, Bossuet welcomed the chance to join in and take his mind off things. He’s not the most sober he’s ever been in his life right now, that’s for sure.

His wobbly efforts to swerve around the next snow pile completely fail, and he plows right into it. A moment later, his shoes are filled with gravel and chips of ice that are already starting to melt against his socks. But even that unpleasant surprise just makes him grin ruefully, and nothing more. He recovers quickly and goes on his way, even indulging in some unsteady whistling as he moves along. It's going to take a lot more than some February snowmelt to dampen his spirits today.

It’s true what they say, he thinks, about “absence make the heart grow fonder.” In the warmth and cheeriness of the bar, his worries about Joly and Musichetta had quickly started to feel tiny and far away, something unimportant from another world. Has he really been obsessing over this like it’s life or death?

Bossuet easily could have drifted away from his friends after college, and spent the next several years wandering through life with no company but his own thoughts. But that’s not how it happened: he and Joly have stuck with each other through everything, in defiance of all the odds. And now Musichetta’s there too and she’s delightful, and Bossuet has a place where he really feels like he belongs: a comfortable, roomy apartment shared with his two favorite people in the universe, both of whom will be happy to see him when he gets home. Awkward moments be damned: he’s the luckiest guy in the world.

He stumbles into the apartment’s cheery kitchen a few minutes later, his heart swelling at the warmth and coziness of it all. It feels more like home to him than any other place has in a long time: the brightly colored, mismatched furniture, the carefully organized jars of herbs and spices, the faint scent of vanilla lingering in the air, all just somehow seem _right_ to him, like the lyrics of a familiar song.

What would the apartment feel like without Joly and Musichetta there? Bossuet can’t even imagine. They’ve made this place what it is, worn it into its comfortable, familiar shape through the everyday rhythms of their lives, lent it a thousand little touches of color and personality. And in a way, they’ve done the same for him.

A powerful impulse kindles itself in his chest: he needs to find Joly and find some way to tell him all this. Musichetta, too, if she’s still here. He’s always been an affectionate drunk, and dammit, right now he has some affection to dispense.

 After a few seconds of stumbling around to check the other rooms for signs of human habitation, Bossuet decides to hell with it and pushes the door to Joly’s room open. “Hey, are you still awake? I’ve got something really, really important to tell you.”

 The scene that greets him when his eyes adjust is one that’s starting to be pretty familiar, for better or for worse: discarded clothes scattered around the floor, two intertwined shapes, and then twin sounds of surprise as Joly and Musichetta disentangle themselves and turn to face him. Musichetta is wearing only a faded old T-shirt, and Joly is down to just a pair of boxers (patterned with tiny spaceships and planets). Bossuet is pretty sure that a second ago, Joly’s head was in between Musichetta’s thighs.

 Huh. That’s interesting, Bossuet distantly registers. _This_ is happening again. But the thought is warped and blurry, like something viewed through greasy glass, and it slides away when he tries to grasp it closer. He’s vaguely aware that under more normal circumstances he’d be flustered to the point of panic right now, but as it is, just standing up straight is taking most of his concentration, and his mood is more on the lines of “sure, whatever.”

“Um, whatever it is, do you think it can wait until after this man finishes going down on me?” Musichetta asks him, her voice still low and breathless. She always does go right for the direct approach, never one to beat around the bush. Bossuet likes that about her. 

Bossuet, for his part, just shrugs--his usual inhibitions have been thoroughly submerged by the drinks he’s consumed this evening. “Yes, okay I understand, you’re—you’re fucking. You two are always having sex around me anyway, I have been made _thoroughly_ aware of it, I have accepted it as a constant in my life, but like...LISTEN, just for a sec, okay? It’s _important._ ”

“Exactly how sober are you right now?” Joly asks, raising an eyebrow.

Bossuet wobbles a hand from side to side. “Ish. I’m high on _life,_ okay, that’s the important part.”

 Joly rubs a hand across his face and sighs. “Okay, you know what, sure. Fire away.”

 Fortunately, Bossuet was already mentally rehearsing this speech on his way in, so he launches right into it without hesitation. “Joly, I’ve known you for—since—for a long time, _years_ I mean, and I know we hang out and we’re cool and everything, but I—I’m just—I worry sometimes that I don’t appreciate you enough. So I just, I just want to make it clear that you mean a lot to me, okay? I don’t know what my life would be without you, I really don’t. You, being there—you’ve got my back, always, and you _get_ me, and that’s, that’s, it’s a lot.”

“Um. Thanks?” says Joly.

Bossuet nods, satisfied: he’s pretty sure that got across most of what he needed to say. “You’re _welcome._ ”

Musichetta has been watching this exchange, head tilted to one side; Bossuet turns to her next. “Musichetta, you too, it’s so good having you here. You’re so smart about, about literature and all of the stuff, and you’re just so cool, and you make Joly so happy, and you make _me_ happy too, okay. And, like—it’s all of this?” He windmills his arms a little to indicate his surroundings, but quickly thinks better of it: his stomach doesn’t need that right now. “This apartment, no matter what, it—it means home, okay? To me. And you guys are part of that.”

Musichetta has a hand over her heart, and her eyes are bright. “Stop it, you’re going to make me cry.”

“Same,” says Joly, taking her other hand.

 Seeing them here like this, all emotional and also definitely not wearing pants, should seem weirder than it does, but all Bossuet can manage to feel is a great wash of affection for both of them. Has he made that clear enough? He should probably try again. "I love you, okay?” he says. “And I want both of you to be happy, because you're both amazing, and I wanted to just make sure you understand that.”

“…Stay right there for a sec, okay?” To Bossuet’s surprise, Musichetta gets up from the bed and starts walking over to him. Bossuet has no real idea what’s going on anymore, but he’s too addled to do anything but roll with it and see where it takes him. He tries not to let his eyes linger on the movement of her bare hips as she approaches him, and mostly kind of succeeds.

He flinches a little when Musichetta puts her arms around him, mostly because it was the last thing he expected. She presses a gentle kiss to his forehead, then backs away a few steps and looks at him with an expression he can’t quite decipher.

“You’re a sweetheart, Bossuet,” she tells him. “Nobody I live with is anything like that nice when they’re drunk, but you…you’re a total marshmallow. I care about you too, okay? I’m really glad I met you.”

“Hang on, if we’re doing this, I want a turn.” The mattress creaks as Joly gets up. He jogs over to Bossuet, throws his arms around him and plants a kiss on his cheek. His hair tickles the side of Bossuet’s face, and the pressure of his arms is steady and reassuring, and Bossuet is pretty sure that he’s still a little hard from what he was just doing with Musichetta. It should be weird, it should be so weird, but instead it’s just…nice.

“You’re the greatest, Bald Eagle,” Joly says, his voice a little muffled from his head still being buried in Bossuet’s shoulder.

He hasn’t used that nickname since college, and all of a sudden Bossuet kind of wants to cry. “You too, Jolly Roger,” he chokes out.

Joly pulls away and gives Bossuet a gentle shove in the chest (which, under the circumstances, nearly topples him over). “But come on,” he says, “you should go and sleep off whatever godawful concoction Bahorel talked you into ordering this time. I love you too, but I kind of want to get back to the sex.”

Bossuet winces as a cloudy sense of concern starts to unfurl in his brain. He’s making everything awkward again, isn’t he? He shakes his head a few times, trying not to let this newfound worry get in the way of the goodwill of a minute ago. “Okay. Yeah. I shouldn’t get in the way. Yeah. You’re right. Sorry. I’ll get out of the way.” He stumbles back from Joly and Musichetta. “Both of you have fun, okay?”

“We will,” Joly promises.

Bossuet nods. “It looks like it’d be fun. You’re both really hot, I hope you know that. It’s fucking unfair…or it’s unfair fucking…something. Anyway, yes, goodnight.”

He’s still unsteady on his feet as he turns and heads out of the room, and the lights are dim, which is probably why he miscalculates and whacks right into the door frame, face first. He deserves some real credit for not falling over, he thinks as he waits for the room to stop spinning. It’s taking a heroic level of effort.

“Oh my God, Bossuet, are you okay?” Musichetta, to  _her_ credit, is actually managing to sound concerned instead of amused. Joly, meanwhile, is more than used to Bossuet being a klutz, and just shakes his head.

 “Yeah. There’s…a door,” he informs them, and beats as dignified a retreat as he can manage. Which is to say, not very much.

Bossuet wakes up late the next morning, twisted up in a crumpled knot of bedsheets. He’s got a pounding headache, and on top of that, an uneasy sense that he should be regretting something. But so far, he’s not quite sure what.

He does not look forward to remembering.

* * *

 

**PART FOUR**

**March**

The fourth time it happens, Bossuet isn’t even _there._ Logically, that should mean that he’s well out of the range of any potential awkwardness…but somehow, life finds a way.

This particular incident starts on a gray and drizzly afternoon, with Musichetta and Bossuet sprawled on the living room sofa, caught up in a lengthy, good-natured argument about _A Song of Ice and Fire._ In all his life (including the year he spent as an English major in college), Bossuet has never met someone so dedicated to talking about literature as Musichetta. She’s even grabbed her weatherbeaten copies of the books so she can cite her sources.

Eventually, they reach a truce of sorts, and the conversation starts to wind down into a companionable silence. Musichetta takes a long drink of her tea and lets out a satisfied sigh. “God, this just is so _nice_ ,” she says, and there’s a fond light in her eyes when she looks over at Bossuet. “I don’t get enough chances to talk about this stuff with people; I’ve really missed it.” She pulls a face. “I mean, it’s not like I can have literary discussions with my roommates.”

Bossuet winces in sympathy; any mention of Musichetta’s subpar living situation is enough to cast a cloud over his mood. “From what I’ve heard, that’s the least of your problems with them.”

She sighs again, this time sounding much more wistful, and curls up against the sofa cushions. “Yeah. I mean, they still pay the rent and everything, and the place has a great location and it’s really close to where I work, but…some problems you just can’t solve with passive-aggressive sticky notes. Honestly, I’m pretty sure it’s only a matter of time before one of them gets arrested or something. And if I get mixed up in that somehow…” she stares off into the distance, jaw set, with a look in her eyes that makes Bossuet think that maybe _she’s_ the one who belongs on the Iron Throne.

He has no idea what to say, honestly. “Sounds like a shitty situation all around,” he finally offers, for lack of a better option. “I hope you can find some kind of way out of it soon.”

“Well, um. About that.” She bites her lip, looking uncharacteristically ill-at-ease: a complete about-face from a moment ago.

When she starts speaking again, Bossuet has never heard her sound so hesitant. “I—Joly and I—we kind of had this idea. This is a pretty roomy apartment, and it’s not too far away from my job, and, well. Joly and I are still really happy together. It’s not out of the question that I might, uh—want to move in someday.”

All Bossuet can do is wonder how the hell he didn’t see this coming sooner. “Oh,” he says.

Musichetta is watching him carefully, like she’s waiting for a reaction. “From what I understand, it could be a mutually beneficial kind of thing,” she says. “You know, with one more person paying rent and everything.”

Bossuet thinks back to the multiple times he’s run into Joly hunched over his desk in the middle of the night, surrounded by sheets of paper covered in scribbled numbers and bemoaning his student loans. “Yeah,” he says, heart sinking. “I mean, we’ve got things handled okay by ourselves, but...it definitely could help.”

“But I didn’t just want to jump into this without asking you first,” Musichetta tells him. “It’s your apartment too; you should have a say. It wouldn’t be right away—there’s no hurry on any of this—but if I eventually wanted to think about moving in, would you…?”

Bossuet’s heart feels like a fishing boat in a hurricane. In light of recent events, the thought of Musichetta being around even more often sends a low, cold scrape of dread through the pit of his stomach, but he can’t voice any objections that don’t involve spilling all of his stupid inconvenient feelings out into the open. Musichetta’s right: on paper, this is a solution that should work out ideally for all three of them. And really, Bossuet should be able to get a handle on his feelings by the time Musichetta moves in.

It would just be a lot easier if she wasn’t so _lovely._ And also if he didn’t want to kiss Joly so much these days.

But all this only means one thing: the only problem is with him. And Bossuet _refuses_ to be a problem for anyone. There’s only one answer he can give, so he gives it.

 “Absolutely. That’d be great.” And then, because Musichetta doesn’t quite look convinced yet: “I _do_ like having you around, you know.”

A dazzling smile spreads across Musichetta’s face. “Back at you,” she says, giving him a light, friendly punch in the shoulder. “Even though you’re wrong about the Starks.”

“Even though I’m wrong about the Starks,” he agrees with a cheerful shrug.

The smile fades off Musichetta’s face. “Seriously, though,” she says, “you can take some time to think about it if you need to. I know it’s a big thing to ask, and I don’t want to make things difficult for you and Joly, and”—

He just shakes his head. “One way or another, you’re always welcome here. I promise.”

Musichetta has no verbal response to that; instead, she tackles him into a hug. Bossuet pulls her in close, and it’s almost a perfect moment. He sternly tells his heart not to start beating faster, but his heart has never been a great listener.

* * *

 

Trying to ignore the little voice in the back of his head saying _It’ll all end in tears_ only works for so long. Eventually, Bossuet has to admit that he needs to get out of the apartment for a while to clear his head.  He ends up seeking refuge in the warm and cheery upper room of his favorite old bar, the Musain, where he’ll hopefully be able to find some companionship and some advice. He finds both in the form of his old college buddy Grantaire, who’s in his usual corner staring into the depths of a beer.

“Hey, Grantaire, what’s up?” Bossuet asks, pulling up a chair.

Grantaire toasts Bossuet with his beer bottle. “Oh, pondering the mysteries of the universe,” he says, his tone heavy with irony as usual. “You know me.”

Bossuet sets down his own drink and sighs. “I feel that.”

He bites his lip, teetering on the edge of a snap decision. Grantaire’s had a pretty colorful love life, and always gives great relationship advice to his friends (even if he doesn’t have the best track record with following that advice himself). Now might be the best chance Bossuet will ever get for an outside perspective on the whole messy situation.

Time to bite the bullet and just go for it. “Hey, Grantaire,” he says, “can I ask you a hypothetical question without making everything weird?”

Grantaire rubs his hands together, grinning (which doesn’t really help Bossuet’s confidence). “Oh, it’s gotta be good if it starts with _that_ kind of disclaimer,” he says with relish. “Never fear, my friend, I’ve built up an unbeatable weirdness immunity over the years. Nothing fazes me these days—I’m friends with _Jehan_ , for God’s sake. So please, fire away.”

Bossuet takes a moment to think back to the last time he met Grantaire’s friend Jehan. Oh, right—poetry reading about storm-tossed mariners, bright pink scarf, lime green glasses frames, earrings shaped like little skulls. Jehan is a delight, but Grantaire _does_ have a point.

“Fair,” Bossuet says aloud. “All right, here goes.” He takes a deep breath and presses on. “Is it possible for a person to, like, actually keel over and _die_ from sexual frustration?”

“Absolutely not,” Grantaire says, spreading his hands in a mock professorial manner. “If it was, I assure you I would not be sitting here and talking to you right now.”

Bossuet frowns, puzzled, for a moment, but then thinks back to the looks Grantaire tends to give his friend Enjolras when he doesn’t think anyone’s looking. “Okay, point. But it still sucks.”

Grantaire nods, looking more serious than Bossuet had expected him to. “That it does. So, if you don’t mind my asking, what makes that a concern for you right now specifically?”

“Well, uh, you know Joly’s dating someone now,” Bossuet says. “And she’s spending more time at our apartment than not, because her current living situation is…not the greatest.”

Grantaire gives him a “go on…” kind of gesture. His face is hard to read.

Bossuet bites his lip, then continues. “And, uh. Because, as we all know, I am a weather vane for terrible luck, I kind of keep walking in on them. While, uh, sexual things are happening.”

“ _Aha,_ ” says Grantaire.

“Aha indeed,” says Bossuet bitterly, and takes a fortifying drink.

Grantaire winces. “I can see how that’d be awkward for everyone involved.”

Bossuet fiddles with a coaster, unable to look Grantaire in the eye. “That, um…well, I mean, sure, yeah, it’s awkward on its _own_ , but the thing is…”

He can’t bring himself to finish the sentence. “Awkward” is so far from enough to cover this whole fucked-up situation, it’s laughable. What do you even call it when your best friends are in a happy relationship, and instead of just being happy for them, you conjure up a hundred ridiculous fantasies about being in the middle of it? What do you call it when you’ve known someone for six years and all of a sudden you catch yourself daydreaming about what he’d be like in bed, wondering what turns him on? What do you call it when just hanging out with your roommate’s girlfriend makes you need to become an expert at concealing steamy thoughts and inconvenient hard-ons? What do you call it when you’ve tried everything you can think of to get rid of all these feelings, but they just keep springing up like weeds in a garden?

He stops studying the wood grain of the table and glances back up at Grantaire, wondering how long he’s fallen silent while he was chasing his own rambling inner monologue. Grantaire, thankfully, looks unperturbed; Bossuet is starting to get the impression that he’s been on the receiving end of this kind of speech before.

“…It’s complicated, okay?” he finally finishes, then goes back to avoiding eye contact as soon as he possibly can.

“Oh, right, you said sexual frustration. On _your_ part, I take it.” Grantaire’s voice is flat. “You got a crush on one of them, didn’t you.” It’s not a question.

“Um…well, you’re _closer_ …” says Bossuet miserably.

“What…oh God, you’re not telling me it was _both_ of…” Grantaire lets out a wheezing noise that sounds halfway between a drawn-out sigh and an incredulous laugh. “I’m sorry, that’s kind of perversely amazing. This is _exactly_ the kind of thing that always happens to you, Bossuet.”

Bossuet buries his head in his hands. “And it all just…keeps _happening_. I honestly cannot turn a corner without bumping into both of them naked on top of each other. My life is starting to feel like an HBO show. Grantaire, please tell me I’m not living in an HBO show…!”

“The cinematography isn’t good enough,” Grantaire observes drily, glancing around the Musain’s battered and dimly lit upper room. “And even if you _were_ , there are probably worse networks to live in. Still: it sounds like you, my friend, have a problem here.”

Bossuet sucks in a deep breath, willing himself with every fiber of his being not to just bellow “NO _SHIT_ ” right into Grantaire’s face. He’s supposed to be the good-natured one, he reminds himself. “Yeah, thank you, I kind of noticed,” he finally says instead, in slightly strained tones. “If you have any thoughts or suggestions on offer, they’d be _more_ than welcome.”

“Heh, you _must_ be desperate,” Grantaire says, leaning back in his chair and swirling the last dregs of beer around the bottom of his bottle with a philosophical air. “Sharing my thoughts is exactly what most people want me to _stop_ doing.”

Bossuet is more than used to Grantaire’s frequent bouts of half-ironic self-deprecation by this point, and he just folds his hands and waits. After a beat or two of silence, Grantaire heaves a theatrical sigh.

“Okay, for what it’s worth, my two cents. Whatever you end up doing is up to you, but no matter what, this status quo isn’t sustainable. All of that going on in one tiny apartment, well”—he raises his eyebrows—“ _that_ whole house of cards is gonna collapse pretty soon, in one way or another. And it’s gonna help if you actually _do_ something about it besides just hanging around and pining in silence.”

Bossuet must have given him an ironical look at that without realizing it, because Grantaire rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Do as I say, not as I do, okay? I have the wisdom of experience. Take it from me, just waiting around for these things to blow up is not exactly what you’d call fun. For God’s sake, _talk_ to them. They don’t bite…well, unless they’re into that, I wouldn’t know.”

He gets up and claps Bossuet on the back. “Tell you what, once the whole mess is over and done with, I’ll buy you a drink. Sounds like no matter how it all goes down, you’re either going to have something to celebrate, or something to forget. Who knows, maybe even both.”

“Exactly what outcome here ends with me _celebrating?_ ” Bossuet demands before Grantaire can leave, beginning to get the uneasy feeling that he’s on the wrong end of one of his friend’s aggravatingly unhelpful moods.

Grantaire pauses in the middle of walking away to throw his arms up in an exaggerated shrug. “That’s for you to find out.”

Bossuet stares into the bottom of his drink like it contains all the secrets of the universe. He’s pretty sure it doesn’t, but maybe it holds the secret to being too pleasantly light-headed to care about his ill-advised crushes.

Except, wait, he tried that approach already. And it just led to him stumbling in on Joly and Musichetta in a compromising moment and saying a bunch of things he’d regret later. _Again._

Fuck.

His phone gives a long buzz, shattering his reverie and making him jump a little in his seat. As he pulls it out of his pocket, he crosses his fingers that it’s not just a spam email—he’d really welcome the chance to talk to someone else right now. He’s stuck in his own head too much these days, and he’s pretty sure that the more he obsesses over the Joly-and Musichetta problem, the worse he’s going to end up making it. What he really needs is something else to take his mind off things.

The alert came from a Skype message—promising—and it looks like there’s an image attached. Bossuet opens the attachment…and then chokes on his drink. Spluttering, he scrambles to pull his phone down under the table, hoping against hope that nobody around him managed to see the screen.

It’s a picture of Musichetta, sprawled on a crumpled tangle of bedsheets, dressed only in a bra and panties. One strap of the bra is dangling over her shoulder, and she’s giving the camera a look that makes Bossuet have to remind himself how to breathe again.

_Musichetta: I think I’m looking pretty good today. Your thoughts? ;)_

_What the hell,_ Bossuet demands of the universe at large, closing out of the chat before anyone catches him staring. _What the_ hell. His thoughts are racing a million miles an hour, but for the most part they’re just going in circles. _Why would Musichetta send me this, what’s she trying to imply, she isn’t trying to cheat on Joly with me, is she, I don’t understand anything and she’s so_ hot _and what is even happening to my life…_

Then the title of the Skype chat catches his eye. It’s not a private chat like he assumed; it’s the group chat he shares with both Joly and Musichetta, titled “3 Musketeers.” He frantically scrolls back up to double-check, and sure enough, there it is: the last Skype conversation all three of them had together (a heated argument about Monopoly house rules in general and the Free Parking space in particular).

An explanation starts to fall into place. While he’s still processing this, a new message comes in:

_Joly: My first instinct is to say yes, but I think I might have to do some firsthand evaluation before I come to any hard-and-fast conclusions._

By the time Bossuet has read that (and groaned out loud at the puns), Musichetta’s already typing her response:

_Musichetta: hard-and-fast sounds interesting. Any chance I could help you come to those conclusions?_

_Joly: You can help me come to_ something.

Bossuet knows in the depths of his soul that if he lets these two get started, they’re just going to keep volleying sex puns back and forth, and then he really _will_ keel over and die right there in the middle of the bar. At the same time, the wordplay section of his brain has kicked into gear of its own accord, and he finds himself brainstorming more double entendres without even really meaning to. _No! Stop it!_ he silently chastises himself, repeatedly smacking himself in the side of the head with one palm. _Bad Bossuet!_

If he doesn’t get a handle on this whole situation right now, he never will. Bossuet starts writing out a response, but has to back up and start over about four times thanks to all the typos he’s making. He’s usually a dexterous phone typist, but, well. Extenuating circumstances.

Finally he manages it:

_Bossuet: um, I hate to break it to you guys, but this is the apartment group convo, not your private chat._

And then, on impulse, because his heart rate still hasn’t fallen back down to normal and it’s putting him in kind of a reckless mood:

_I mean, you’re right, you are looking good, but I get the feeling I wasn’t the intended audience there._

Bossuet doesn’t have to suffer in silence for long before he gets a response.

_Musichetta: Oh my God, I’m so sorry, Bossuet!_

_Musichetta:  I have no idea how that happened_

_Joly: Of course the one time we make that mistake it’s with sexting_

_Joly: Of course_

_Joly: That’s Murphy’s Law for you_

_Bossuet: Well, I kind of gathered that you had other things on your mind, so it’s understandable_

_Musichetta: I guess you could say that. Sorry for dropping that on you with no warning!_

_Musichetta: Thanks for saying I look good though <3 _

That one little symbol at the end of Musichetta’s text is almost enough to give Bossuet a heart attack. He can feel his pulse rushing in his temples as he stares at his phone, inventing a hundred different possible reasons for why she sent it to him. Each one is more hopeful, and less probable, than the last.

This, he thinks, is getting ridiculous. Time to get out of here while some shreds of his dignity are still intact.

_Bossuet: Well don’t let me interrupt you_

_Bossuet: Enjoy your puns and/or sexting_

His face burns as soon as he’s sent that, a chorus of _why did I say that why did I say that why did I say that_ ringing in his ears. But he forces himself to push past that reaction. If he can’t be flippant and lighthearted with Musichetta and Joly, even at a time like this, what’s the point of anything?

He firmly shuts his phone down. Anyone else who wants to text him this evening is just going to have to wait. He’s going to stay right here and finish his drink.

* * *

 

**PART FIVE**

**May**

The fifth time it happens, Bossuet knows that it’s the beginning of the end.

He opens a new tab in his internet browser. Then closes it. Then opens it again and lets out a long sigh.

He doesn’t want to do this. He really doesn’t.

 _Things can’t keep going on like this,_ he reminds himself for about the twentieth time that day. _It’s just not a sustainable state of affairs. Grantaire was right, you know he was._

He lets out a long sigh, grits his teeth, and opens all the bookmarks from the folder he created last week. The ones with listings for apartments in the area.

It’s the worst he’s ever felt about looking for a new place. Just scrolling through the listings is enough to make him feel sick. This apartment is home, and so is Joly, and if Musichetta is starting to feel like a part of that too, does that really have to be so wrong?

Then his memory rolls the highlight reel of the past few months: the misplaced sexting, the late-night drunken interruption, and every other catastrophe. Yeah, apparently it _does_ have to be like this. As much as Bossuet hates this, he knows he only has two options. He can beat a quiet, lonely retreat now and minimize any future embarrassment, or he can stand by and let his infatuation make a complete train wreck out of everything. Really, there’s no contest.

His heart wrenches at the memory of Joly and Musichetta’s bright, hopeful faces and excited voices, both of them outlining an ideal future where Musichetta moves in and all three of them are happy together. Bossuet wishes more than anything that it could happen, that he could get over his infatuation like a bad cold, that his feelings came with an easy “off” switch.

If wishes were horses, Bossuet could win the damn Kentucky Derby these days.

He’s been quietly starting to do the necessary research over the past couple of days. He’s talked to Bahorel (whose knowledge of local housing options borders on the encyclopedic) and done some Googling around, and he’s written up the details of the five or six most promising nearby apartments in his day planner. Now, he supposes, he can’t put it off any longer: it’s time to go through that list, weigh the options, and narrow it down to the top two or three candidates.

There’s just one problem: where the fuck is his planner?

It’s not the first time he’s misplaced it, not by a long shot. It can be kind of an inconvenient thing to keep around, but Bossuet is the kind of person who remembers things best if he physically writes them down.

He rummages around in every corner of the living room and kitchen that he can think of, then ransacks his bedroom. No dice. He supposes he really shouldn’t be surprised. Every new chapter in his life seems to start with him losing something. A phone, a set of keys, a planner…

… _or your two best friends,_ he thinks, then grits his teeth, blinking rapidly, and tries to force that thought out of his mind.

 “Hey, guys, quick question?” he asks, pushing open a door and stepping into the next room.

For several seconds immediately afterward, the only thought occupying his mind is that he really, _really_ ought to have known better by now.

In his defense, he’d been totally fixated on his search, checking every possible shelf and corner and getting more annoyed by the minute. He tends to slip into tunnel vision in that kind of situation. So he really hadn’t been in the best condition to notice the usual signs—subtle sounds of rustling and moaning, and the sock on the door, if there’d been one.

So here they are in this situation again, for the fifth time. But this time it’s much worse than it’s ever been before. Joly and Musichetta are on top of a tangle of blankets on Joly’s bed. They’re both entirely naked, Musichetta riding Joly with what looks like considerable enthusiasm. And there’s Bossuet, leaning against the doorway, somehow tangled up in it all yet again.

Bossuet’s train of thought goes right off the rails. _Oh,_ is all he can think at first, and then (in some background part of his brain) _Bahorel’s fitness regimen seems to be_ really _working out well for both of them_. Then the panic catches up, setting his brain on a rapid loop of _oh my god this is happening, this is really happening, Joly and Musichetta are having sex in front of me and I’m standing here watching it, what the FUCK._ Finally, everything just kind of burns itself out and vanishes, leaving his mind ringing with blankness.

“Oh, god, I’m so sorry,” he manages to croak out loud, after what he’s sure was an uncomfortably long pause.

“I hope it _is_ a quick question,” Musichetta tells him through labored breaths, “because I— _really_ —do not want to stop right now.”

“That makes two of us,” says Joly. Bossuet is trying desperately to keep his eyes off the lean muscle of his roommate’s naked body, but it’s not much help: even Joly’s face is pretty breathtaking right now. He looks so _different_ like this. His usual lighthearted grin is transformed into something else altogether, a look of total, blissful focus. He’s given himself so completely to this moment, and the passion of it is written in every line of his face.

When Joly cares about something, he pours his whole heart and soul into it. Of _course_ that would apply in the bedroom. Bossuet’s imagination is already going wild in spite of himself.

 “Um, no, yeah, sure, no need to stop on my account, don’t let me inconvenience you,” he says, talking quickly but barely even stammering. “I’ll just be in and out really quick here. Which is probably what…” he winces. Apparently he hasn’t gotten all the bad puns out of his system since the sexting incident. “…um…okay, you two really don’t need me to point out the innuendo there, do you,” he finishes.

“I feel like I should probably be insulted,” says Joly, “but honestly, I can’t bring myself to care right now.”

“Fair,” Bossuet says. To his surprise, he’s not frozen to the spot in panic anymore—in fact, he suddenly has to fight down a delirious laugh. This isn’t happening. There’s no _way_ that this can be happening. Not even his guilty daydreams usually get this far. 

If his life is going to turn into an improbable fever dream, he might as well treat it like one. And anyway, neither Musichetta nor Joly seems to be treating this like it’s weird so far, and Bossuet is damned if he’ll be the first one to freak out.

So he just shrugs, and tries to sound as casual as he can. “But yeah, my day planner? Little battered green notebook thing? Seen it anywhere lately?”

Musichetta turns slightly to face him, a waterfall of dark curly hair spilling over her bare shoulders as she does. She’s still subtly rolling her hips against Joly, Bossuet can’t help but notice, her movements slow and luxuriously deliberate. Bossuet is not about to say anything—he’s all in favor of multitasking, and if _he_ were in that situation, he wouldn’t want to stop either.

“Um, I’m not sure,” she tells him, looking mostly undisturbed even if her face is a little red. Joly shrugs, as best he can in his current position. “We try not to mess with your stuff too much. I assume you’ve checked the”—Joly shifts position unexpectedly and she doubles over with a moan—“ahhh _God_ —sorry, checked all the obvious places it’d be?”

“I think so, but what do I know? I’ve got kind of a talent for overlooking things that are right in front of my face.” Bossuet allows his mouth to twist upwards into a smirk at the sheer irony of that statement—he’s pretty sure it’d be impossible to overlook what’s going on in front of his face right this moment.

“Wait, wait, hang on, I got it!” Joly—whose multitasking skills may be a notch below Musichetta’s—stops moving against her and props himself up a little (she makes an involuntary little noise of disappointment that Bossuet can’t help but find a little adorable, even at a time like this). “No, yeah, that’s it! I took over the desk yesterday to study for that med school exam, and I cleared a bunch of stuff off so I’d have space to write. Check the desk drawers?”

Joly’s voice is a little shaky, and it takes Bossuet a moment to decipher the last sentence, but Bossuet is pretty sure that he wouldn’t be able to string together words at _all_ if Musichetta was fucking _him._ Really, Joly deserves points for being comprehensible at all. “Okay, thanks,” he says, giving both of them a thumbs up. “You’re awesome.”

Getting to the desk, unfortunately, requires walking around the two lovers. Bossuet moves as slowly and carefully as he can, like someone trying to avoid waking up a tiger. It is around this time that he realizes a very important distinction: he might not be outright panicking anymore (although he’s sure he’ll get back to that later), but he’s still very much…well, _reacting_ to the situation. And walking carefully around the edges of a room is not easy when you’re wearing a slightly-too-small pair of sweatpants and you have the biggest hard-on of your life. If he’s not careful, he’s going to come right then and there just from the friction, he thinks, and then has to fight down another hysterical laugh at the sheer absurdity of the situation.

Bars of evening sunlight are falling on the three of them through the nearby window, throwing the whole scene into a sharp contrast of light and shadow. Musichetta is still moving gently against Joly, and Bossuet catches his eyes lingering on the way the curves of her breasts shift subtly with the motion. Joly is rolling his hips in gradual circles in harmony with Musichetta’s movements, and after a moment he lets out a long, broken sigh. Bossuet is pretty sure he’d give anything to hear that sigh again, ideally in the comfort of his own bed.

He shakes his head and starts moving faster towards the desk. It takes him several times to get the drawers open—even if he’s still mostly holding the panic at bay, his hands are shaking. He turns up the planner on his third try, gets an iron grip on it, and turns around…only to get lost in the view again, in spite of his best intentions.

Bossuet cannot really tell if he’s breathing or not anymore. Either way, his heart is working overtime. Alarm bells are going off in his head, some part of his mind shouting at him that he _shouldn’t_ be so complacent about this, that it _should_ be a big deal, and _why isn’t he freaking out already? Why aren’t they freaking out either? I am interrupting my roommate and his girlfriend having sex; goddammit, why is no one PANICKING?_

Bossuet should really say something or other, and then he needs to leave. But he can’t tear his eyes away, can’t make his feet take another step.

Musichetta turns enough to look at him again—maybe wondering why he’s still here; he wouldn’t blame her. But their eyes stay locked for longer than the situation really seems to need. Musichetta’s face and body are still bathed in sunset light filtering in through the window blinds, her curves textured in gold and shadow, her eyes a luminous amber as they meet his. Or almost meet his, anyway; her gaze seems a little distant and unfocused. Her lips are slightly parted, as though she’s on the brink of saying something—or maybe she’s just lost in the moment.

“Bossuet,” she breathes out, and he’s pretty sure his heart stops for a second right there. “You could stay. If you wanted.”

Even as Bossuet stays frozen in place, rooted to the spot by Musichetta’s words, his mind is racing into overdrive, gears spinning to no effect. What the hell does she mean, exactly? Stay and…watch? Stay and _join in?_

The worst part is, he can picture it. He knows Joly and Musichetta well enough by now, and he’s surprised them in enough intimate moments by now, that he’s got a pretty good idea of what the whole thing would look like. His traitorous imagination is already hard at work painting the picture.

Musichetta, always so confident and self-assured, would set the pace, riding Joly harder and faster, until it would finally get to be too much for even her composure and she’d double over, gasping, her face contorted in a pleasure as intense as agony. And Joly, always so detail-oriented, would turn the same infinite care and focus to Musichetta that he uses for everything important in his life. He’d find exactly the right angle to thrust up into her, and maybe reach up and do some interesting things to her breasts…

But it wouldn’t just be so much choreography. Joly and Musichetta love life so much, and they love each other so much, and they’re so good at finding the joy in any situation. There would be laughter, Bossuet is sure of it. Laughter at silly or awkward moments, and laughter just for the sheer delight of being there together and making love with each other…

Bossuet doesn’t even need his imagination, not really. It’s all right there in front of him, already starting to happen. All he needs to do is not move. The easiest thing in the world.

Bossuet’s heart thunders, looking at Musichetta and at Joly. Desire floods through him, incandescent and overwhelming, drowning out all other sensations, all other thoughts. Instead of walking away like he still distantly knows he should, he has to fight back a sudden, wild urge to close the distance between them.

It’s guilty and wrong and wonderful, overwhelming and shameful and ecstatic, all at the same time. And he knows he is never, ever going to stop wanting it. He wants _more_ of this, wants to see them like this so much more, and he can’t pretend otherwise any longer…

He involuntarily backs up a step or two, trips over a pile of discarded clothing (Joly’s), and just like that, the spell is broken. Arousal and panic stage a brief, violent war inside his head, and panic wins.

Bossuet mumbles something that has about zero comprehensible words in it—along the lines of “um sorry I’m just gonna just okay yeah later”—and all but bolts out of the room, doing his best not to be too obvious about what is still a pretty considerable hard-on.

He doesn’t crash right into the doorframe on the way out, this time, and he counts that as a victory.

A minute later, Bossuet collapses onto his bed and lets out a lengthy, exasperated sigh, until there’s hardly any air left in his lungs. For a few moments more, he just lies there staring at the ceiling. Maybe if he just forces himself to watch the ceiling fan spinning around and around for long enough, his overheated brain will cool down and he’ll forget about…well, everything else.

Of course, it doesn’t work out that way.

He still can’t believe he just did that. He has no idea how long he stood there staring, but he knows it was too long. This is it. It’s over.

His mind is a chaotic wasps’ nest of unfinished thoughts. Plans, hopes, fears, imaginary conversations, memories, apartment listings—they all chase each other around in his head until he buries his face into the pillow in hopes of a respite from all the mental noise. None of it produces any answers, just intensifies the gnawing sense of dread in his stomach.

He’s here at last: the ultimate culmination of the infamous Bossuet Bad Luck. The bottom of the barrel. Missing a bus, forgetting a phone, tripping over an untied shoelace—none of them even register compared to this. He’s found his way into a wonderful life—together in a great apartment with his two favorite people in the world—and now, no matter what he does, the whole thing is about to come crashing down by his own hand. All because of stupid crushes and ill-advised lust and overstepped boundaries and a whole intertwined mess of feelings that he never planned on having.

He closes his eyes, tighter and tighter until red sparks flare in front of his vision. It’s perversely impressive, this trap he’s managed to build around himself. If he leaves now, he’s abandoning Joly and Musichetta at a crucial moment, letting them down personally _and_ as a roommate, and burning two bridges he’s not sure he can live without. But if he stays around, well…then he’s continuing to get in the way of a perfectly happy relationship. He’ll just skulk awkwardly around, counting down the days until he can’t keep his feelings hidden any longer. And then he’ll make everything hopelessly weird, even more than he has already, and damage the best friendships in his life beyond repair.

Either way, one thing is for sure: Bossuet is going to be the one who drives them apart. Who ruins everything. And isn’t _that_ just his damn luck.

 _But hang on,_ another part of his mind objects. _You’re not considering everything here. What the hell was that whole ‘you can stay’ thing about? Did that mean what I thought it meant, is…is she interested in me too?_

That thought is good for one great, ridiculous stab of hope before the dark clouds gather again. Bossuet groans aloud and flops over onto his stomach. _Doesn’t matter,_ he reminds himself. _Even if she_ was _interested_ , _you could never do that to Joly._ He thinks of the permanent dark circles that used to live under Joly’s eyes, and of how much more he’s heard him laugh since Musichetta started hanging around their apartment. In light of those facts, Bossuet can’t see his growing infatuation with Joly and Musichetta as anything but an intrusion, a corruption, a blunt instrument that could shatter a delicate and lovely connection with one wrong move. _Bottom line? One way or another, everything’s all fucked up and weird now, no matter how it all falls out._

And the worst part of everything is that he can’t even settle down and methodically think his way through the whole mess, because he’s still so fucking _horny_.

He still has about 40% of a hard-on from the memory of the two of them naked in front of him. It would be so easy to just…take care of that, right now. After all, it’s not like he doesn’t have several internet bookmarks’ worth of erotica (lovingly curated from the most ethical independent sources he can find) saved for occasions like these.

But no. He can’t, even though he can still feel his whole body seething with warmth and excitement and _need._ With the memory still so fresh, he doesn’t trust himself not to picture Joly or Musichetta or (even worse?) _both_ of them at a critical moment. And even just the thought of that _possibly_ happening has the bitter taste of a betrayal. That’s not something he could ever go back from if he let it happen, even once.

He wishes he didn’t have so much very specific new data about what both of them look like naked in the throes of passion. That’s _really_ not helping things.

A few of Bossuet’s fingertips slide under the waistband of his underwear, past the curve of one hip. He pauses, savoring the simple feelings of warmth and pressure and proximity. His heartbeat speeds up. 40% of a hard-on turns into something more like 60%. He stops and takes a deep breath, his whole body tense…then grits his teeth and takes his hand away.

A few moments later, his hand slides into place again, almost without his even thinking about it. This time, it takes significantly more willpower to pull it away.

Maybe it doesn’t really make a difference if he does a little hands-on reminiscing or not, Bossuet concludes. Either way, he’s _totally_ fucked.

* * *

 

**PLUS ONE**

**May**

The next day, Joly and Musichetta corral Bossuet into another apartment meeting, just like he knew they would.

It’s casual enough, with Joly sitting next to Bossuet on the sofa and Musichetta in an adjacent chair, but that doesn’t stop it from feeling like an inquisition. Bossuet looks around at the familiar furnishings of the living room area while he waits for someone to say something. There’s the dartboard full of all his terrible shots and Joly’s precise ones, there are all of Joly’s posters from old science fiction movies, there’s their shared stack of DVDs, there’s a novel and a coffee mug Musichetta left on the end table. How can it all manage to look so normal and familiar when everything else in the apartment has gotten so impossibly strange?

Finally, Musichetta takes a deep breath and starts talking. “So as you may have gathered, there’s something we need to talk about.” Bossuet’s stomach gives a hollow lurch like he’s perched at the edge of the highest drop on a roller coaster, and all he can do is nod.

“Bossuet, I can practically _hear_ you beating yourself up about this already,” Joly says, in a tone that would be stern if there wasn’t so much fondness buried just under the surface. “Give yourself a break, okay? Take a couple of deep breaths.”

“Yeah, your face is doing that guilty thing,” Musichetta says. “That’s not going to get any of us anywhere. If we can, let’s try not to approach this like it’s about someone doing something wrong. It’s just…a problem that needs to be solved, and all three of us can figure it out together. We’re all on the same side here. I promise.”

“Seriously,” Joly says, “it’s gonna be okay. Nobody is anybody else’s enemy here. I’m sure we can talk this through and figure out a solution where everyone’s happy.”

Bossuet is privately convinced that there’s no way everyone is ending this conversation happy, but he nods anyway. There’s a lump in his throat—Joly and Musichetta being so thoughtful almost makes this worse.

“You’ve probably guessed what this is about,” Musichetta says. “The whole…thing…where you somehow keep catching Joly and me having sex.”

“Or, well, that’s part of it, anyway,” Joly says.

 _Here we go,_ Bossuet thinks to himself, that weightless feeling of vertigo getting stronger in the pit of his stomach. _Deep breaths._ “Yeah, I know,” he says aloud. “And I am _so_ sorry, I _promise_ it’s never on purpose. The last thing I want is to invade your privacy.”

“Don’t worry, I believe you,” says Joly, reaching over to give Bossuet a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “I _know_ what your luck is like. Accidentally walking in on us over and over is _exactly_ the kind of thing that would happen to you.” Bossuet almost manages to crack a smile at that—Joly has him figured out, all right.

Musichetta shrugs. “Maybe _we’re_ the ones who should be apologizing. We don’t want to subject you to anything you’re uncomfortable with, either, and we probably haven’t been as careful as we should have. But that’s not really what this is about.”

Joly looks strangely nervous, fidgeting in his seat and not meeting Bossuet’s eyes. Bossuet frowns, confused—he’s pretty sure that’s supposed to be _his_ thing right now.

“If it was just that we wanted to stop having you accidentally walk in on us,” Joly says, “we wouldn’t really need to have a meeting about it. We could just mention it to you once, and start remembering to lock the doors more. But the truth is…um…kind of more complicated.”

Musichetta takes a deep breath, pressing her hands together. “What we thought we needed to talk about was, um, what happened yesterday. I mean, I know you’ve walked in on us before, but this time Joly and I were fucking. In front of you. And we both realized we kind of…didn’t really mind having you there. And I don’t know how you felt about it, but it didn’t really seem like you were in a big hurry to leave, either. That’s not….”

Bossuet hangs his head, staring down at the carpet. “It’s not normal, I know. Yeah.”

“What? No! Dude, _fuck_ normal.” Musichetta sounds surprised and more than a little indignant.  
“Nobody’s ‘normal,’ and trying to pretend you are is no way to live your life. But it seems like things have changed lately. And that doesn’t have to be a bad thing! I don’t think the question is who needs to apologize for what, it’s just…what do we want to do about this?”

Bossuet straightens up and faces Joly and Musichetta again. Maybe he’s setting himself up for more disappointment, but somehow this doesn’t feel quite as bad as he’d imagined. “Yeah. You’re right.”

“Bossuet, I want to ask you something,” Musichetta says. Is her voice shaking a little? Bossuet must be imagining it. “And if you can, try not to think about what answer you think you _should_ be giving, or protecting anyone’s feelings, or any of that. All I want is an honest answer. No judgment, I promise.”

So much for that hopeful feeling. Bossuet nods, feeling his heart sink at the same time that his stomach turns over (not a very fun combination). There’s no getting away from it now. This is it: confession time, high noon, buzzards circling overhead, the walk to the gallows. All he can hope for now is to face his doom with some measure of dignity.

Musichetta leans forward and looks him right in the eye. “Bossuet, do you want to have sex with me?”

Bossuet wishes that hearing that could have made him feel electric inside, but instead it feels like his blood is freezing in his veins. How the hell did his life even get to this point, he asks himself. A gorgeous, talented, brilliant, amazing woman is talking about having sex with him, and all he can bring himself to feel is dread. When did everything get so fucking _complicated_?

Oh, right. He still has to actually answer her question. He wills himself not to stutter, but of course it’s no good. “Yes. No. I mean, _yes,_ but…”

One corner of Musichetta’s mouth turns up in a hint of the old wry smile. “Well, that clears _that_ up.”

Bossuet stares at the floor. His voice is flat. “Look. You are very gorgeous, okay.”

“Thanks,” Musichetta says, and Bossuet is surprised to note that she actually sounds kind of flattered.

“It’s a fact. I mean”-- he waves a hand in her general direction—“ _look_ at you, honestly. And, well, I’ve been seeing a lot of you lately…maybe more of you than any of us would have planned. So, um, yes, I have to admit that I am kind of…attracted to you.” The last words escape him all in a rush. There, he’s said it, it’s out in the world.

He draws in a long, shuddering breath and continues. “But I mean, that doesn’t have to change anything, I swear. I don’t want to be creepy about it, or ruin things, or intrude between you and Joly or _anything_.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t assume you would be,” Musichetta says softly.

The moment feels too fragile to disturb. Bossuet just breathes, and waits. It’s all he can do.

 “We talked about this after last night,” Joly says. His ears are bright red again. “We kind of anticipated this possibility. And we decided that we’re actually both…pretty okay with it.”

“Look,” Musichetta says, not meeting Bossuet’s eyes. “I love Joly a lot, and he and I want to stay together, no matter what. But…that doesn’t mean we necessarily want our relationship to be, well…”

“Traditional?” Joly offers.

Musichetta nods. “Traditional, yeah. So, Bossuet. If you want to try out some kind of arrangement, one where you’d be… _involved_ with me, and with Joly too if you wanted that, we’d be open to it. So, um, what are your thoughts on that?”

Bossuet’s limbs are involuntarily shaking a little again. He can honestly say he never expected things to get this far. At the same time, though, he’s not as surprised to hear them say this as he would have been before yesterday. He is not an idiot: he remembers Musichetta asking him to stay, and noticed how she responded to him calling her gorgeous just now.

Still: holy shit.

For all of five seconds, Bossuet manages to convince himself that he could be okay with this. Settling into a new role where he visits the apartment’s other bedroom every once in a while. Slowly sorting out infatuation from lust, and letting his crushes settle into something easy and comfortable and friendly. Learning to let it be enough, in a strange halfway space on the road to everything he’s ever dreamed.

It’s a nice five seconds while it lasts. But he cares too much about all of them to settle for that. Or maybe he’s just too fucking greedy. Either way, it comes to the same thing.  “…I’m sorry,” he finally says, his voice low and quiet. “But I don’t think that would work.”

The silence that follows is about as comfortable as broken glass.

“Oh,” says Joly after what feels like an eternity has gone by. “Oh. That’s okay.”

“I don’t want to put too much pressure on you or anything, but you can explain why?” Musichetta asks. “I mean, you don’t have to. It’s your decision. But if you don’t mind sharing, I’d just…I’d like to know what you’re thinking.”

Bossuet braces himself by instinct, waiting for everything to kick in all over again: the burning rush of embarrassment, the flickers of panic, the pressure of countless secrets weighing on his mind. But it’s not there. Everything just feels dull and flat and empty. This is already the end. Joly and Musichetta actually offered to have sex with him, and he _turned them down_ because he’s the world’s biggest idiot, and pretty soon he’s going to be leaving for good. Everything’s over. It’s all he can do now to give the whole mess the coda that was inevitable all along.

One last deep breath, and then he’s started talking again. His words are shattered, shaking things. “I mean, it’s just…if we did some kind of side thing, a friends-with-benefits thing or whatever, if you wanted to do that, I…I don’t think I could handle it. Because, I’m sorry about this, but it’s not just being attracted to you. I might have kind of a crush, actually. On, uh. On both of you.”

There’s a gentle, surprised intake of breath from somewhere near him. Maybe it’s Joly, maybe it’s Musichetta—Bossuet really doesn’t want to look up and check right now. Nothing for it but to soldier on until he’s said everything he needs to say.

“And I’m so, _so_ sorry,” he continues, and hears his voice break and hates himself a little for it. “I never meant for it to get like this. I know you two are together, and you’re happy, and I don’t want to get in the way of that, I _swear_ I don’t. You’re just so, so _wonderful,_ and I…it all kind of got out of control.”

“I’ve”—he tries swallowing, but his throat is too dry—“I’ve been looking at other apartments in the area. I’ve found a couple of places that aren’t too expensive. I don’t want to leave, I really don’t…” He feels himself starting to choke up, and fights it down. “And I don’t want to leave you in a bad situation with the rent or whatever either. I can try to help find another roommate for you guys, if you want me to. But I just…don’t know if I can be here anymore without making things uncomfortable for everyone. I’m sorry.” There. It’s done. All that’s left is to bury his head in his arms and try his hardest not to cry. He can already tell it’s going to be an uphill battle.

“ _Bossuet._ ” He starts a little at the unexpected, gentle pressure of Musichetta laying a hand on his arm. “Oh, Bossuet, you sweetheart,” she says, and _that’s_ when he starts crying for real, leaning helplessly into her touch and just letting go.

“It means a lot that you care so much, it really does,” she says, still holding onto him and stroking his arm with the lightest brush of her fingertips. “But you shouldn’t feel like you have to sacrifice your own happiness for this. I don’t think it’s weird, or creepy, or _anything._ And I know Joly doesn’t either.” Bossuet thinks he hears a hint of a smile in her voice. “If anything, it’s kind of flattering. Having more love to go around doesn’t have to be a bad thing, Bossuet.”

Bossuet takes in a shaky breath. At least he’s stopped crying now. Progress. But this conversation hasn’t gone anything like he’d imagined it would, and now he’s feeling more than a little lost at sea.

“Wait, wait, back up, hang on a sec.” Joly leans forward, facing Bossuet on the sofa, fingers steepled in front of him. His intense, calculating gaze makes Bossuet feel a little like he’s a patient Joly is examining. “Bossuet, are you saying what I think you’re saying here?”

How many times is Bossuet going to have to say it? Once was already more than enough of an emotional roller coaster for him. “That I…uh…kind of like you?” he answers, hesitant. “In not just a roommates-and-bros-for-life kind of way? Yeah. But Joly, I _promise_ it doesn’t have to change anything between us if you don’t want it to, I can get over it, I won’t be weird about it…”

“No, yeah, I got that part.” Still the steepled fingers, still the laser focus. Bossuet can practically hear the gears turning in Joly’s head. But he has no idea why—after everything he’s just admitted, what the hell else could there even _be_? Why won’t Joly just let the conversation die its natural, horribly awkward death, so Bossuet can go find a quiet corner and peacefully marinate in shame?

“It’s just—I mean, it’s not important, comparatively. But.” Joly bites his lip and takes in a deep breath. Why does he look like he’s steeling himself for something? By all rights, _Bossuet_ should be the one who needs the inner fortitude right now. He hadn’t thought this situation could get any more uncomfortable, but damned if this prolonged inquisition isn’t doing the trick. He has the infuriating sense that there’s something obvious he’s missing, some puzzle piece just out of reach that would explain why the hell Joly is reacting so strangely to all this…

Finally, Joly speaks up again. “Exactly _how long_ have you felt like this?”

“Well, um, seeing you with Musichetta these past few months, that was when it got really bad. I kind of started…wanting to join in, and that was as much because of you as it was because of her.” Admitting that is safe enough ground, Bossuet figures; it’s nothing Joly and Musichetta couldn’t have figured out for themselves given recent events.

…But oh, to hell with it. Everything is a mess anyway, so he might as well take his one and only chance to be honest about this. It takes him a few moments to get up the courage to start speaking again, and on the first try his voice cracks and he has to start over. Joly and Musichetta, to their credit, just sit there and wait patiently for him, trying not to make their expectant looks too obvious.

Slow-burning seconds tick by until the silence grows too heavy for Bossuet to bear. He feels weightless and untethered as he starts to speak, his words ringing hollowly like they belong to someone else. “But in the interest of full disclosure,” he says, “Joly, I’ve felt this way about you for…a while. Ever since college, there would be times when I’d wonder about _us_ , every now and then. But I tried to forget about it, because you’re—“ he fights back the tears threatening at the corners of his eyes and forges ahead—“you’re the best friend I’ve ever had, Joly, and I didn’t want to fuck it all up.”

He throws up his hands and lets them fall. “And, well, so much for that now.”

There. That’s it. He said it. Completely spent, Bossuet just collapses back into the depths of the sofa cushions and waits for the inevitable. He’s sure Joly will let him down gently. And then it’ll be goodbye to the days of easy, effortless companionship, goodbye to spending every day with his best friend in the world. Hello to uncomfortable glances, hello to awkward silences, hello to him and Joly avoiding each other more and more every day until finally they don’t talk to each other at all, hello to—

“Bossuet,” Joly says. His voice almost sounds like it’s shaking. “Bossuet, _me too._ ”

Time slows down to nothing as the words sink in. No, Bossuet thinks. No way, he can’t have heard Joly right, there’s no way he just said what Bossuet thinks he said…

“Hang on,” he says. “Run that by me again.”

Joly leans in closer to Bossuet, and the words come spilling out of him in a rush. His voice is definitely shaking now. “Bossuet, I’ve been a little in love with you since halfway through sophomore year, and I never said anything for _the exact same reason_.”

It’s like the air has been electrified. Bossuet’s heart hammers in his chest. He looks from Musichetta, who’s beaming at both of them, back to Joly, who looks simultaneously elated and terrified, and also like he might be about to pass out. Bossuet suspects that if he held up a mirror, he’d see the same look on his own face.

“Are you _kidding_ me?” is all he can think to say, the words jumbled up with a giddy, nervous laugh.

Joly’s laughing too, more of a hysterical wheeze than anything else. “What the hell _took_ us so long?” he finally chokes out.

Bossuet just shakes his head. “Oh my God, we’re a pair of idiots.”

“Maybe, but you’re an _adorable_ pair of idiots,” Musichetta tells them. “No matter what else happens from here on out, I’m glad I played a part in helping you two realize this.”

Bossuet and Joly are just hanging on to each other for dear life, laughing helplessly for the sheer release of tension as much as anything else. “In fairness,” Bossuet manages to say once he’s gotten a little of his breath back, “a lot of people have pointed out that we _are_ practically an old married couple already. I guess maybe it’s not that far of a stretch?”

“Yeah, but consider this,” says Joly, very seriously. “We could have been making out for _years_ , and we never did, all because _nobody ever said anything._ This is a tragedy.”

Bossuet nods, playing along with Joly’s mock-serious demeanor even as he can feel his heart hammering against his ribs. “You know, you’ve got a point there.”

Joly smirks. “Surely you always knew I would have rocked your world.”

“Well, if you wanted to start getting caught up…” Bossuet pauses long enough to shoot Musichetta a slightly guilty glance. “If, um, if that’s okay with you?”

She waves a hand, her smile almost as wide as Joly’s. “Wouldn’t stop you for anything.”

“Oh, for the love of— _get over here,_ you nerd,” says Joly, and tackles him.

They fall back into each other’s arms, laughing helplessly again. Before Bossuet really has time to think about it, much less get nervous again and start trying to talk himself out of it, they’ve both leaned in at the same time. He’s not even sure who makes the final move and brings their mouths together.

 _Great minds think alike, I guess,_ is Bossuet’s last coherent thought before he’s overwhelmed by it all. Physically speaking, his first real kiss with Joly is maybe a little awkward, a little hesitant—but honestly, who gives a fuck. That doesn’t matter all that much compared to the fireworks show going off inside him for the sheer joy of the realization that they’re _here,_ they’re _doing this,_ this is _real._ Kissing Joly is an unexpected sunburst on a cloudy day, the physical embodiment of a long string of exclamation points, and eventually they have to give up and break it off because they’re both smiling too much.

Bossuet leans away a little and raises his eyebrows at Joly in an expression of pure thrilled disbelief. Joly beams back at him, in a silent _I know, right?!?_ Bossuet’s heart feels bright and new all of a sudden, his breathing deeper.

“ _Oh,_ ” is all he can think to say.

“ _Oh,_ ” Joly echoes, in exactly the same tone, and then: “So, uh, that was good, do you maybe want to”—

“ _Yes,_ ” is all Bossuet has time to say, since they’re both leaning in again already. He only has a split-second glimpse of Musichetta before the second kiss, but he thinks she might possibly be trying not to cry.

“So what happens now?” Bossuet asks when he and Joly break apart. He’s already decided that this is the best day of his life, and later on he’s going to have to find a quiet corner and just cry at the sheer beautiful impossibility of it all, but he’s even more confused about everyone’s relationship status than he was when this conversation started.

“Now,” Musichetta says, getting up and walking over to stand right in front of him, “ _I_ finally get to admit that I’ve had a crush on you for most of this spring. And then I’m going to ask if I can have a turn kissing you.”

There’s no way this is really happening. Bossuet’s heart soars to such heights that he practically gets vertigo. “Wait, _seriously?_ ”

She breathes out a helpless-sounding laugh. “Bossuet, _yes._ I mean it, I promise. All those times you interrupted us…it should have been annoying, but somehow it never was. After a while, it just started to feel like you belonged there, with us.”

Bossuet can see a stray tear or two glittering in the corners of Musichetta’s eyes. “This spring, hanging out in this apartment with you and Joly, it’s just been the best,” she tells him. “I’m happier than I’ve been in a long, long time, and that’s thanks to you. Both of you. And…I’d really like for it to keep being all three of us, together. If that’s what you want.”

It’s just too much. Bossuet hides his face in his hands again. “I…I’m sorry, it’s taking me a while to process this,” he mumbles through his splayed fingers. “I feel kind of like I just won the lottery. Twice. Which is not exactly how things usually go for me.”

“I’d say the universe owes you some good luck by this point,” Joly says, and leans in and kisses Bossuet on the cheek for good measure.

“So can I maybe have a turn to--?” Musichetta starts to ask.

“ _Please,_ ” Bossuet says before she’s even finished the sentence. Musichetta doesn’t waste any time either, sprawling herself across Bossuet’s lap and leaning in.

Musichetta might be pretty forward about some things, but she kisses him slow and sweet and patient, like she’s got all the time in the world. Kissing her is nothing like kissing Joly, and Bossuet honestly cannot believe he’s lucky enough to experience both on the same day.

“ _Wow_ ,” is all he can say when they’ve finally broken apart. “This is— _wow._ ”

“Maybe I should have warned you about what a good kisser she is,” Joly says, looking immensely pleased with himself.

“You know what?” Bossuet says. “I’m okay with being pleasantly surprised.”

Musichetta pulls back a little, still holding him, her eyes wide and her expression serious. “I have to tell you,” she says, “I was _so_ scared, Bossuet. I could tell things were…different between you and Joly lately, and I know how much you two mean to each other, and I was halfway to convincing myself that I’d come between you somehow.”

“After today,” says Joly in that particular this-is-leading-to-a-joke tone of his, “I’m pretty sure I can say that you can come between us whenever you want. Ahem.”

“Joly, as much as I love you, that was terrible,” Bossuet says. In most cases, saying “I love you” all of five minutes into a new relationship paradigm might be weird, but what the hell, he and Joly have known that they love each other for _years_ , and they’ve never been afraid to say it before. All that’s changed is the specific parameters of what that word means now. It’s an oddly comforting thought.

Musichetta is rolling her eyes at both of them, her face a picture of fond exasperation. “Yes, it _was_ terrible, I’m glad someone realizes that. But, anyway, I was worried that I was ruining a friendship that went back years, and then I started getting feelings for you, Bossuet, and…I don’t know, it was a mess. I was pretty convinced that I was fucking everything up somehow.”

It’s like she’s been reading his thoughts. “Yeah, that’s pretty much exactly what it felt like over here,” Bossuet tells her, and it’s such a relief finally being able to admit it.

Joly shrugs. “Same.”

Bossuet has to laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all. “So, uh, exactly how long were we all chasing each other around in circles on this?”

Joly just shakes his head. “You know, I somehow get the feeling that there’s a lesson to be drawn from this.”

“Yeah,” says Musichetta, “and that lesson is that we should _fucking talk to each other about things,_ even when it’s scary or awkward or whatever. That could have solved basically all of our problems right from the start.”

“Well, it sounds so easy when you say it like _that,_ ” Bossuet protests. “I was fucking terrified, okay?”

Joly nods, looking uncharacteristically grave. “I know, I know. But if we want this to work in the long term—all three of us, dating each other”—

“A polyamorous relationship,” Musichetta says, and actually hearing it said out loud feels like a small miracle. “That _is_ what we want, right?”

Bossuet still can’t believe that they’ve gotten to this point. But he does know what he wants to say. “…Yes.”

Slowly, Musichetta starts to smile again. “Then, well, as long as we keep that in mind and remember to actually talk through the important stuff…I think we’re going to be great.”

“We are going to be the _best,_ ” Joly says, and Bossuet can hear his faith in them in every syllable.

“You’re really sure you want to try this?” Bossuet asks one more time.

Musichetta shrugs. “None of us are _sure_ —that’s kind of how things like this work. I had one open relationship in college, but it wasn’t really anything like this. We’re all going to be figuring it out together.”

She’s still got a serious face on, in theory, but the excitement is shining through it like sunlight through stained glass. “But we _are_ sure we want to give it a shot,” she says. “I _want_ to figure this out with you. Both of you.”

“Think of it kind of like a thirty-day free trial, if you want,” Joly says. “We’ll test it out, and if it’s not working for all of us, we can ‘return’ it, no hard feelings.”

“You and your metaphors,” Bossuet grumbles, cracking a smile.

“But it sounds like a good deal, right?” Joly prods, leaning forward, tension written in every line of his body.

“Yeah,” Bossuet says. “Yeah, it really does.”

There’s a long pause.

“….So,” says Bossuet finally. “I guess this means we’re not going to need the socks on the door anymore.”

Joly arches one perfectly suggestive eyebrow. “Believe me, socks are one of _several_ items of clothing we’re not going to need.”

“I think I get the _thrust_ of your argument,” says Bossuet, because what the hell, and after last time he’s completely run out of sock puns anyway.

 “I knew you could _rise_ to the occasion,” Musichetta says.

Bossuet racks his brain for another sex-related wordplay, but his thoughts are still reverberating with the pure shock of the last half hour. “…Fuck it, I got nothing,” he finally says.

And then they’re all laughing helplessly, leaning in close to each other, like they have on many occasions before now. And this time, Bossuet abruptly realizes, he could actually close the rest of the distance between them, if he wanted.

In the giddy lightness of the moment, it feels almost effortless…until he’s already moved in closer to Joly and Musichetta than any innocent excuse would account for, and then his heart is racing and he somehow has no idea what to do next. He’s not even sure which one of them he was planning to kiss—which, in hindsight, is something he really should have made up his mind about beforehand.

 Musichetta makes the decision for him, leaning in just an inch further and putting her mouth on his. It couldn’t be more different from the way she kissed him a few minutes ago. This time, it’s slow and deep and sensual, and the intensity of it sends shivers through Bossuet’s body.

Musichetta twists away from him for a moment so she can kiss Joly, and Bossuet feels a jolt of excitement as one of Joly’s hands lands in his lap, and he barely has time to process that before Musichetta is back to kissing him, this time so fiercely it leaves him breathless, and okay, wow, Joly’s hand isn’t just on his lap now, it’s definitely specifically on his dick, and _that’s_ not something Bossuet ever thought he’d experience outside of quickly repressed daydreams. Almost involuntarily, he grinds into the pressure, moaning against Musichetta’s mouth. She responds by kissing him even more deeply than before, her tongue intertwining with his, until both of them have to break apart for sheer lack of air. Meanwhile, Bossuet’s been getting a lot harder, and Joly is shamelessly encouraging that with the judicious application of nimble fingers…

Then they all break apart, breathing hard, and a moment later everyone starts talking at once.

“So, um, now is probably a good time to ask. Do we want to…” says Musichetta.

“I mean, I know this is all brand-new, so if you want to wait a while before we get into anything, that’s okay…” says Bossuet.

“I don’t want to assume anything, I don’t know if this is weird for you…” says Joly.

They all stumble to a halt at more or less the same time. A tense, expectant silence hangs in the air.

But for the first time in this whole ridiculous roller coaster ride, Bossuet doesn’t have to take a long time to think it over. Just looking at both of them, all breathless smiles and shining eyes and both so wonderfully _themselves,_ is enough to give him a vivid reminder of how he’s been aching with want for them for so long. And now that he knows they feel the same way about him…this time, he knows just what he wants to say.

“Guys. If you want to take this more slowly, I’ll respect that, but…let me just go on the record here. I want this. I really, really want this.”

And then, one deep breath later, the plain and simple truth of it all: “I really, really want _you guys._ ”

“It’s only fair,” Musichetta says, and the smile she turns on Bossuet is delightfully wicked. “After all those times you walked in on us, don’t you think it’s about time you were properly _invited?_ ”

Bossuet grins back at her, practically dizzy with happiness. “If you want to invite me, I will _gladly_ R.S.V.P.”

“Mmm. You know, it’s gotten warm out so damn _early_ this year…” She stands up and goes up onto her tiptoes in a luxurious stretch, reaching her arms above her head…and then pulls her shirt off in one smooth motion, and she’s left grinning at Bossuet in just a tank top and short shorts.

“You’re right. We are definitely not going to need all of these layers,” Joly agrees, and whips his own shirt off with a theatrical flourish.

Bossuet would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little enticed, but mostly he’s just trying not to laugh. “Thank you for the reminder that both of you are _total nerds_.”

Joly pulls a deeply wounded face, then turns to Musichetta, shaking his head. “How do you like that? We open our heart to him, and all we get for it is insults.”

“Honestly.” Musichetta fixes Bossuet with a lofty gaze. “Do you want us to fuck you or _not_?”

Hearing her say _that_ makes Bossuet feel pretty sure his heart just stopped. “Um, yes, that would be good, actually,” he says after he’s gotten his breath back, trying to sound casual about it and knowing he’s not even close. “And anyway, that wasn’t an insult, it was a compliment.”

“We can worry about that later,” Joly says. “Bedroom?”

“Race you,” Bossuet says. He wins the ensuing dash, but it’s only a moment later that all three of them are tumbling onto Joly’s mattress, holding onto each other and laughing for sheer joy.

Bossuet has never felt more welcome in his life.

* * *

 

Bossuet doesn’t actually _sleep_ with Joly and Musichetta after he…well…sleeps with them.

After some of the best hours of Bossuet’s entire life, they’d all collapsed on each other in a delicious, delirious haze, and none of them had had the slightest desire to move at all. But real life had intervened: they’d quickly discovered that no matter what arrangement of limbs they tried out, Joly’s bed just could not hold all three of them for the night without at least one of them being a contortionist. Joly and Musichetta had felt bad about Bossuet going back to his own room, not wanting him to feel left out yet again, but he’d reassured them that it was just as well: he needed some time on his own to process it all anyway. So Bossuet had stumbled back to his room, where he’d proceeded to pass out the moment his head hit the pillow.

Pale morning light is spreading its way across the ceiling by the time he wakes up. For a while, Bossuet just lies there, watching the dappled patterns of leaf shadows shift across the walls. He can feel the thud of his heart; now that he remembers what happened last night, the giddiness is kicking in all over again.  

Bossuet stretches, noting a lot of interesting new muscle aches that he really, really does not regret getting. He lets out a long breath, ending in an emphatic “holy _shit,_ ” and gets up and ambles off to shower.

As usual, he’s the first one up, and when he makes his way out to the living room, he’s got the place to himself. So if he indulges in a few celebratory dance moves, well…who’s ever going to know?

“Nice,” says Musichetta from the doorway to Joly’s bedroom, just as he’s getting into it. “Very _Saturday Night Fever._ ”

Bossuet stumbles to a halt, nearly crashing into the coffee table. “Aw, fuck.”

“Don’t worry, it was adorable. Anyway, good morning, sweetie.” She puts her arms around him and leans in for a kiss, and oh, Bossuet could _really_ get used to starting his days like this.

He beams bashfully down at his socks for a moment before he can manage to meet her eyes. “Good morning. So, uh, that really happened, huh? Not just the best dream ever?”

“You’d better believe it,” she says, and kisses him again. “But hey, sorry again about kicking you out last night…”

“I promise you, it’s fine,” Bossuet says. “I have _no_ complaints about how last night went down.”

Musichetta bites her lip, looking contemplative. “You know, if we’re going to be doing this, we’re probably going to have to invest in a bigger bed pretty soon.”

Bossuet takes a moment to savor the mental image of all three of them at a furniture store, comparison shopping for beds and making a succession of terrible mattress-related puns. It’s almost too much for his heart to handle.

“Always assuming you don’t want to move out anymore,” Musichetta is saying, and Bossuet has to hold himself back from laughing out loud.

“’Chetta, the only reason I ever even considered it was because I couldn’t deal with all the pining, and well.” He raises his eyebrows at her. “We took care of that.”

“The pine forest has been depleted,” Musichetta agrees, solemn.

Bossuet elbows her in the shoulder. “ _Nerd._ ”

“ _You’re_ a nerd,” she says, elbowing him right back. “And, well, I don’t want us to get too far ahead of ourselves, but I’m guessing that was also the reason you looked a little hesitant back when I was talking about moving in?”

“It was,” Bossuet confirms. “I was seriously worried I was going to spontaneously combust or something if you did. But I promise, if that’s still what you want, you’d be more than welcome.”

“You and Joly have sure been making me feel like it,” says Musichetta, putting an arm around his shoulders. 

Joly wanders in from the bedroom with a truly epic case of bedhead, rubbing his eyes and yawning. “Talking about me behind my back?”

“Only good things,” Bossuet assures him. As one, he and Musichetta converge on Joly, and they all get distracted with good-morning hugs and kisses for a few idyllic moments.

Joly surveys the kitchen with bleary interest. “Do we have any good cereal left? And also coffee? Like, a lot of coffee?”

“You know what, I was actually kind of thinking we could all go out to that new brunch place downtown,” Bossuet says. He had the idea while staring at his bedroom ceiling earlier, and he’s still not used to being able to suggest things like this, but he wants to try it out. “If you ask me, a brand-new relationship arrangement is the kind of thing that really deserves to be commemorated with waffles. How’s that sound to you guys?”

Joly brightens right up. “It sounds like I have made _excellent_ boyfriend choices.”

It’s a blissful jolt to the senses, hearing that word _boyfriend_ from Joly, and it makes Bossuet want to pick Joly up and spin him around in sheer delight. So he does.

“So what else are we going to do today?” Joly asks, as all three of them start rummaging around for phones and wallets and shoes. “We’ve got a whole new relationship to explore; I for one want to make the most of it.”

“Hmmm.” Bossuet thinks this over. “Kissing. Definitely a lot of kissing.”

“Probably talking through some boring stuff about expectations and boundaries and finances,” Musichetta says, although she doesn’t sound bored at all.

“Maybe we can all catch a movie or something tonight,” Joly says. “You guys, we can go on dates with all three of us now, I can’t wait.”

Musichetta clears her throat with a complete lack of subtlety. “And hey, if you’re up for a second round so soon after last night…”

“You have my attention,” Bossuet says.

“And mine,” says Joly, just half a second after.

Musichetta beams at them. “Mmmm, good. I’ll look forward to it. Hey, Bossuet, when we get to that, maybe you should go down on me again? I want to figure out how you did that thing with your tongue last night.”

All of a sudden, Bossuet feels a little weak in the knees. “I’d be _more_ than happy to.”

“We’ve got a big day ahead of us,” Joly says, throwing the front door open and gesturing to the sunlit world outside. “Shall we?”

 “Sounds like a plan,” Bossuet says, and hurries to follow.

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this fic comes from [ Stray Italian Greyhound ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLySk3i4dFI) by Vienna Teng, a song with lyrics that really speak to Bossuet's whole situation here. 
> 
> Ever since I first joined the Les Miserables fandom, I've loved the trio of Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta so much. They're so great together, and any fic with all three of them is practically guaranteed to be delightful. It's rare that they get to play the starring roles, though, and still less often in fics where smut is involved. So I thought I'd do something about that myself!
> 
> Speaking of which, this is the first time I've written a fic with smut involved, so please do let me know how you think that turned out! I have a lot more ideas for potential Joly/Bossuet/Musichetta fics in this series, ranging from pure fluff to pure smut and everything in between. If people are interested, I'd love to keep writing about these three nerds!
> 
> Thanks as always to the whychat crew of fulldaysdrive, AtypicalOwl, and Snuggalong for their friendship, writing advice, and moral support. Couldn't have done it without you guys.
> 
> I'm [ shamrockjolnes ](http://shamrockjolnes.tumblr.com/) on tumblr; feel free to drop by and say hi!


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